Working Group on Race, Justice, and Africana Religions
HISTORY OF THE WORKING GROUP
The Working Group began out of a community project titled “Race, Justice, and Africana Religions,” funded by the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation. The project, which lasted from January 2022 to June 2024, aimed to gain a better understanding of the types of discrimination that devotees of Africana religions and Black Muslims experience in the 21st century and to develop solutions to help combat that discrimination.
To that end, the project participants (who were selected from a robust pool of international applicants) hosted conversations and events in fall 2022 to document, analyze, and develop solutions to the discrimination and violence that they and their communities face as practitioners of Africana religions. Some of the participants described their activities in initial reports that we have published below.
In May 2023, the project leaders and participants met in Salvador, Bahia (Brazil) for a four-day workshop to discuss their findings and identify how they might work together to reduce violence against Africana religious practitioners and communities. During the workshop, the participants developed several short-term projects to help combat discrimination against Africana religions. Explore the participant profiles below to learn more about the projects that they have organized.
During the workshop, the participants also decided to establish a permanent Working Group that would bear the same name as the initial project. The Working Group is designed to promote solidarity across the lines of religion, language, nation, class, and other forms of difference to improve the lives of devotees of Africana religions. At this stage, the Working Group members include people from Camdomblé, Lukumi, Hoodoo, Vodou, Islam, Palo Monte, Ifá, Orisha, Ogboni, Islam, and Egbe. The following individuals are the founding members who wished to be publicly identified.
Founding Members
Malika Ali
As Chief Innovation Officer of Highlander Institute, Malika is responsible for the Institute’s approaches to equitable school and district transformation as well as program implementation across state, district, and school systems. Through culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy, community-driven approaches to change management, and liberatory data practices, Malika and her team work to ensure that all children have access to, and can take advantage of, an empowering education. Through this project, Malika is interested in better understanding how Black Muslim students in K-12 spaces experience religious discrimination in schools for the purpose of developing guidance for educators and administrators to better support equitable teaching practices.
Emanuel Basnight
Growing up in a spiritually conservative Northeastern North Carolinian AME Zion family, Emanuel Basnight was aware of the gaps Christianity left in conversations about Black American spiritual identity from an early age. It wasn’t until the death of his mother in 2012 that Emanuel acknowledged his ancestral spirits, divination, spirits of nature, prophetic dreams, and other activities that led him to Hoodoo. As a 20-year marketing strategy professional, Emanuel combined his love for business, education, branding and spirituality into the creation of Brands by Basnight (2018), a handmade herbal skincare company and Bless the Roads (2021), a spiritual goods company devoted to Black spirituality.
Danielle N. Boaz
Danielle N. Boaz is an Associate Professor in the Africana Studies Department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she offers courses on human rights, social justice, and the law. She has a Ph.D. in history, a J.D. with a concentration in International Law, and a LL.M. in Intercultural Human Rights. She is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Africana Religions. Dr. Boaz is also a licensed attorney in the State of Florida and the State of North Carolina.
Gustavo Melo Cerqueira
Babalorixá of Ilê Axé Omi Ogun siwajú, Gustavo is also an actor, director, and playwright. Graduated in Law from the Federal University of Bahia, Master of Arts and PhD in African and African Diaspora Studies from the University of Texas (Austin, United States), he is the author of articles published in the areas of theater, performance, and studies of religion in national and international journals. Currently, Gustavo is working in partnership with national and international organizations to combat religious racism.
Aline J. Cruz
Master’s student in the Multidisciplinary Postgraduate Program in Ethnic and African Studies at the Federal University of Bahia (POS-AFRO / UFBA). Member of the Research Group ÍTAN – Poetics of the image: Other spellings, Insurgent narratives. Activist in the Makota Valdina National Front and candomblecist at the Caboclo Tupiniquim Center.
Rosiane Rodrigues de Almeida
Dr. Rosiane Rodrigues de Almeida is a postdoctoral researcher at the Graduate Center in Administration (NPGA) of the School of Administration of the Federal University of Bahia (EAUFBA). She was a FAPERJ Nota 10 Postdoctoral Fellow (2021-2022). She received the Lélia Gonzalez Award, “Best Thesis” category, at the 32nd Brazilian Anthropology Meeting (2020). Dr. Rodrigues de Almeida earned her PhD and Master in Anthropology from the Graduate Program in Anthropology of the Fluminense Federal University (PPGA/UFF). She is a researcher at the Laboratory of Social Heritage Management (MILONGA-UFBA). She has a degree in Social Communication (2009), with a specialization in Advanced Holocaust Studies from the Yad Vashem Museum (Jerusalem – Israel), and a postgraduate degree in Education for Ethnic-racial Relations from CEFET/RJ.
Charlene Desir
I am a research professor in South Florida and a Manbo (Priestess) initiated in Sosyete Nago in Haiti. As a Haitian school psychologist, my work is focused on the cognitive, psychological, and spiritual liberation of people of African descent. I teach graduate students in education and facilitate psycho-social cultural literacy enrichment programs for youth of African descent.
Ana Emilia Martins Gualberto
Historian (UERJ) and Master in Culture and Society (UFBA). I focus on historical research and consulting with an emphasis on the history of the black population, working mainly on the themes: racial ethnic identity, human rights, black populations, remaining quilombo communities, traditional black communities, religious intolerance and racism, black women and Afro-Brazilian culture.
Kahdeidra Monét Martin
Manbo Dr. Kahdeidra Monét Martin is currently a postdoctoral scholar of education at Stanford University. Through the lenses of critical race theory, intersectionality, and translanguaging, Dr. Martin examines raciolinguistics and the co-naturalization of language, race, and spirituality in the lives of African descendant people globally. She uses her lived experience, qualitative, and community participatory methods to examine linguistic variation, discourses of deviance, and the intersectional experiences of underrepresented groups in P-12 education research—namely Black youth in elite, independent schools and Black youth who are members of African diasporic religions.
Arleth Marinho dos Santos Monteiro
Egbomi of Terreiro do Cobre and religious leader of Omiró and Obá, Arleth Marinho dos Santos Monteiro has a degree in pedagogy (FAEM – Ibicaraí-BA) and a postgraduate degree in Educational Planning (UNIVERSO- RJ). She is a songwriter, singer, and poet.
Kameelah Mu’Min Rashad
Dr. Kameelah Mu’Min Rashad is the Founder and President of Muslim Wellness Foundation (MWF). Through MWF, Dr. Mu’Min Rashad has established the Omar ibn Said Institute for Black Muslim Studies & Research, the annual Black Muslim Psychology Conference and the Deeply Rooted Emerging Leaders Fellowship for Black Muslim young adults. Dr. Rashad is also an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Muslim Studies at Chicago Theological Seminary.
Elisia Maria de Jesus Santos
Bio: Dangbesi of Hunpkame Savalu Vodun Zo Kwe, Historian (UNYLEYA), Sociologist (UFBA), Psychopedagogue (Dom Bosco) and Masters in Social Sciences (UFBA). She focuses on the area of gender, race and religion with an emphasis on sociology and history of the black population, working mainly on the themes: religious intolerance and racism, human rights, citizenship and ethics and intangible heritage. She is currently a professor at UNYLEYA, UFBA, EAD tutor at UNEB and high school teacher at SESC.
Elisia recently completed a project titled “Snaking Justice” for the Working Group. The main goal of the research project was to promote awareness and action against religious intolerance, highlighting the specific experiences and demands of the Jeje Savalu communities in Brazil.
George Raymond Turnage
Chief Mayegun Isese Agbaye, Gro Yatandé Novayon Andaïzol. I am the President of the National African Religion Congress and The Head of the Spiritual House, LePeristyle Haitian Sanctuary.
