Annual State of Education on Africa Virtual Conference
“What is ‘the African Diaspora’— and Why Should it Matter to Me?”
Friday, 1-6pm ET
January 19th, 2024
Watch the full recording ↓
Thank you for everyone who attended this year’s AAI’s State of Education on Africa conference! The virtual conference was live-streamed on Friday, January 19th, 2024 from 1-6pm ET. The conference theme for 2024, “What is ‘the African Diaspora’—and Why Should it Matter to Me?” explored the changing meanings of “the African diaspora” and “African American" in today’s cultural and political landscape and the value of centering Africa and its worldwide diaspora in K-12 education.
Our annual State of Education on Africa conference aims to reach a broad intellectually curious and socially conscious audience. The program is designed to offer something useful to students, parents, teachers, school administrators, academic scholars, social justice activists, leaders in philanthropy, and others eager to learn more—whether based in or outside the United States.
Registered conference received a Professional Development Certificate in recognition of their participation.
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
1 PM EST
WELCOME REMARKS
Kofi Appenteng
AAI President
1:05 PM EST
VIDEO GREETINGS
Deniece Laurent-Mantey
Executive Director, President Joseph Biden Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States
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Deniece Laurent-Mantey serves as the Executive Director of the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States and the senior State Department representative for the U.S.- Africa Leaders Summit. From April 2021 – February 2023 she served as the Director for Africa at the White House National Security Council where she led over 18 U.S. government agencies and coordinated with various stakeholders to execute President Biden’s priorities for the 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit and was the policy architect behind the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement. Laurent-Mantey led efforts to help generate $15 billion to support trade and investment across Africa, and a $55 billion commitment to advance U.S.- Africa shared priorities. Under her guidance, the White House launched the $800 million Digital Transformation with Africa initiative. Since 2008, Laurent-Mantey has served on the Secretary of State’s policy planning staff, held the position of Acting Deputy Director and Desk Officer in the Bureau of African Affairs, served as Special Assistant to Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry, and worked as a Staff Assistant and intern in the Bureau of Oceans, Environment, and Science; the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; and the Bureau of African Affairs from 2008-2012. Laurent-Mantey is the recipient of two Department of State Superior Honor Awards and two Meritorious Honor Awards. She was named one of the Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD) in 2018. She has an MA in African Studies and Public Policy from Howard University and a BA in International Relations from Syracuse University.
STUDENT VOICES VIDEO
Young Perspectives from the students of Marygrove High School in Detroit, Michigan
1:15 PM EST
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
“Reflections on the Importance of Afro-Latin America in the Global Black World”
Dr. Kia Lilly Caldwell
Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Diversity and Professor of African & African American Studies, Washington University in St. Louis
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Trained as a socio-cultural anthropologist, Dr. Kia Lilly Caldwell has conducted research on issues of race, gender, black feminism, and health in Brazil for close to three decades. Her scholarly work has been instrumental in the development of the fields of Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Latin American Studies, as well as scholarship on Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Latin American women.
Dr. Caldwell is the author of Negras in Brazil: Re-envisioning Black Women, Citizenship, and the Politics of Identity and Health Equity in Brazil: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Policy. Her articles and essays have been published in numerous U.S. and Brazilian publications. She is currently co-editing an anthology titled, Black Feminisms beyond Borders: Cultivating Knowledge, Solidarity, and Liberation and completing a book titled, Occupy Politics: Black Women’s Democratic Engagement in the Americas. Dr. Caldwell co-founded the African Diaspora Fellows Program in 2014. This program provided professional development opportunities to North Carolina middle and high school teachers in African and African Diaspora Studies.
2 PM EST
SCHOLARS PANEL
On Key Terms: “The African Diaspora, “Pan-Africanism,” “African Americans,”and More
Moderated by Mora McLean,
AAI President Emerita & Historian
Nii Laryea Osabu I (Wendell Adjetey)
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Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey (Nii Laryea Osabu I, Atrékor Oblahii kè Oblayéé Mantsè) is William Dawson Chair and Assistant Professor of post-Reconstruction U.S. and African Diaspora history at McGill University. His first book is Cross-Border Cosmopolitans: The Making of a Pan-African North America (UNC Press, 2023). He is working on two book projects on revolutionary Black organizing and state repression in the United States and Americas, and nineteenth-century African-led abolitionism and warfare along the Gulf of Guinea, respectively. Dr. Adjetey is the recipient of McGill's H. Noel Fieldhouse Award for Distinguished Teaching, and the Principal's Prize for Excellence in Teaching.
Assistant Professor and William Dawson Chair, Department of History, McGill University
Krista Johnson
Associate Professor and Director, Center for African Studies, Department of African Studies, Howard University
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Krista Johnson received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University and has published on a wide range of topics including health policy, gender and HIV prevention, global health governance in Africa, and race and racism in International Relations. She has lived and traveled extensively throughout southern Africa, completed a Fulbright Fellowship in 2012 at the Centre for the Study of HIV and AIDS at the University of Botswana, and has been a visiting scholar at the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape. In 2019 she was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fellowship to conduct research for her upcoming book on The “Howard School” and early African American scholar in the field of International Relations. She completed a fellowship with the Dresher Center for the Humanities at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) in 2021. She was also awarded a Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship for 2021 in partnership with the Institute of Pan-African Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg.
Maboula Soumahoro
Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Tours and Visiting Professor, Bennington College
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Maboula Soumahoro is an associate professor in the English Department of the University of Tours and president of the Black History Month Association, dedicated to celebrating Black history and cultures. In 2023-2024, she is a fellow at the Columbia University Institute for Ideas and Imagination. She translated Saidiya Hartman classic work, Lose Your Mother : A Journey Along The Atlantic Slave Route from English as À perte de mère – Sur les routes atlantiques de l’esclavage released in September 2023 (Brook). She is the author of Le Triangle et l’Hexagone, réflexions sur une identité noire (La Découverte, 2021).
3:10PM INTERMISSION BREAK
3:15PM OVERVIEW & STUDENT VOICES VIDEO
Young Perspectives from the students of Marygrove High School in Detroit, Michigan
3:20 PM EST
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
“Africans and African Americans: Evolving Historical Connection”
Moderated by Deborah D. Taylor, Award-winning Librarian
Nemata Blyden
Professor of 19th Century African American and African Studies, The Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies, University of Virginia
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Nemata Blyden holds a BA in History and International Relations from Mount Holyoke College, and an MPhil and PhD from Yale University. Dr. Blyden specializes in African and African Diaspora history. Dr Blyden co-authored “Between Africa and America:Recalibrating Black Americans' Relationship to the Diaspora, with Dr. Jeannette Eileen Jones in 2020. Her 2019 book, African Americans and Africa: A New History (Yale University Press) provides an introduction to the relationship between African Americans and the African Continent from the era of slavery to the present, examining the diversity of African American identities through relationships with region, ethnicity, immigration, and slavery to investigate a fundamental area of African American studies. She is the author of West Indians in West Africa, 1808-1880: A diaspora in reverse, (University of Rochester Press, 2000). Professor Blyden was a consultant for In Motion: The African American Migration Experience for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York Public Library). Professor Blyden has lived in Africa, Europe and the Soviet Union.
4 PM EST
K-12 PRACTITIONERS GALLERY
Moderated by Dr. Olivia Lynch,
AAI Senior Education Program Advisor
Lisa Williams
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Lisa Williams is the proud principal of The School at Marygrove in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. She began her career with the district more than 25 years ago as a high school English teacher before serving in leadership roles in Oak Park Public School District, Ferndale Public Schools and the Van Dyke Public School District. She also worked as a school improvement consultant with Wayne RESA. She is a trustee on the Minerva Education Development Foundation Board and member of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals. Williams, a two-time Western alumna who received her bachelor's degree in secondary education-English and master's in educational leadership, received the College of Education and Human Development's Golden Apple Award in 2013. Lisa is the mother of two sons, Deonte Roberts and Jordon Williams.
Principal, Marygrove High School and Elementary School
Dr. Chalena Beasley
Principal, Ralph Bunche K-8 Academy
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Dr. Chalena Beasley has been in education for over 25 years and has served as a teacher, District School Improvement Coach, Curriculum Director, School Improvement Facilitator, and Assistant Principal. As a teacher, she obtained her National Board-Certification. She received a bachelor's degree in Elementary Education from Western Michigan University, a Master's in the Art of Teaching from Marygrove College and Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies program from Wayne State University.
Lesina Martin
Teacher and Howard University Masters Candidate
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Lesina Martin is a native of Detroit, MI. She graduated from Howard University in 2003 with a B.A. in African Studies. While there, she co-founded Nsaa Dance ensemble - the University’s first campus organization for African dance and drumming. Also during her time at Howard, she joined Farafina Kan under the direction of Mahiri Keita-Edwards - son and protégé of Mamady Keita. In 2004, she appeared on Moustapha Bangoura’s instructional video series Tinkanyi (1 and 2). For ten years, she taught outreach throughout the Washington, DC area with Traditional Expressions, a program designed to teach African folkloric studies (dance, music, song) as youth arts enrichment. She entered the classroom full-time teaching Social Studies in 2014, and is now a Teaching Artist and Co-Director of Farafina Kan Junior Company. Over the years, Lesina has traveled to West Africa on several occasions to study traditional folklore in Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire. Most recently, she rejoined Moustapha Bangoura to record the instructional dance video series Tinkanyi in Conakry, Guinea. Lesina endeavors to continue the mission of working with the community and fellow educators to increase awareness of African cultural heritage.
4:45 PM EST
BOOK TALK
On Carole Boston Weatherford’s Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library
Carole Boston Weatherford
Poet, Author, Critic and Professor, Fayetteville State University
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The daughter of a printer, Carole Boston Weatherford was practically born with ink in her blood. She began writing at age 6 and soon after saw her poems in print. She has authored 70-plus books. Her books have garnered 2 NAACP Image Awards and 9 American Library Association Youth Media Awards, including a Newbery Honor, Coretta Scott King Award and 4 Caldecott Honors. Her career achievements have been recognized with the North Carolina Award for Literature, the Nonfiction Award from the Children’s Book Guild and induction into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame.
Deborah D. Taylor
Award-winning Librarian, 2015 Recipient, Coretta Scott King/Virginia Hamilton Practitioner Award for Lifetime Achievement
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Deborah D. Taylor retired from the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, MD. She chaired and served on many American Library Association (ALA) committees, including the 2015 Sibert Award for Outstanding Informational Books for Children, the Newbery Awards, Coretta Scott King Book Awards and the Michael L. Printz Award. This year, she completed a term on the Institute of Museum and Libraries Board. She is currently a member of the Ezra Jack Keats Book Awards committee, a panel moderator, and reviewer of young people’s literature.
5:30 PM EST
CLOSING REMARKS
Acknowledgments and Resources
Mora McLean
AAI President Emerita and Historian
SOE 2023 Virtual Conference
AAI’s 8th annual State of Education on Africa conference on “Africa, the Global Climate Crisis, and Reparations” took place virtually on Friday, January 20th, 2023. Following the conference theme, our speakers discussed the interconnections between reparations and the climate crisis in Africa and the world at large, and set stage for people of all ages and backgrounds to simultaneously draw lessons from world history and pursue practical approaches to achieving climate justice and repair.
