Cohort 2022 SJR Readers + Mentors
Thank you to the Supporters of the Social Justice Reader Program at the Institute Library
Carolyn Foundation; Community Foundation for Greater New Haven; Friends and Family of Linda Lindroth; Goldman Sachs Gives; NewAlliance Foundation
The Institute Library witnessed and celebrated the brilliant scholarship of the Social Justice Reader inaugural cohort of 2022! We had the opportunity to host seven New Haven high schoolers in a paid mentorship and research based fellowship program. Each Reader was encouraged to pursue an area of study related to race or social justice. We were pleased and immensely proud as the SJR Readers presented their individual research projects in June 2022.
Myla is mentored by Markeshia Ricks (she/her)
Markeshia Ricks is a veteran journalist who has worked in newsrooms in Alabama, Florida, Virginia, and Connecticut. She has covered everything from local boards of education to policymaking in two state capitals and on Capitol Hill. Markeshia is currently the director of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s Youth Arts Journalism Initiative (YAJI) and a founding member of a news start-up called Cracked & Golden. She is a former Knight Fellow in Community Journalism and a graduate of the University of Alabama and Johnson C. Smith University.
Amirah Harris (she/her, they/them)
Amirah’s research has led her to writing an article informed by her knowledge o location of two facilities, the East Shore Water Pollution Abatement Facility an lower-income Annex neighborhood in New Haven, CT. In her research, she exam strategically placed in order to disadvantage the lower income POC in the com and the Annex neighborhoods, one will notice that the East Shore area has mor area. The Annex has much more rundown houses, less greenery, and much mo clear inadequacy between neighborhoods. Amirah’s article will not shy away fr question what more is being done to improve the quality of life for those living
Amirah is mentored by Karen Jenkins (she/her)
Karen Jenkins is the Founder and Managing Principal of Development4Good, LLC a consulting firm specializing in strategic planning, fundraising, board development, and organizational alignment for non-profit organizations in the United States and abroad.Ms.Jenkins received her M.A. in International Relations from Yale University and a J.D. from Rutgers University School of Law. Her undergraduate work was at Fisk University.For nearly a decade, Ms. Jenkins worked in Zambia on programs and projects intended to build local institutional capacity and improve the quality of life for those who are poor, marginalized, persecuted, or forced to flee as refugees. In Zambia, she served as the Resident Representative for Africare, a US NGO and then as Executive Director of New Development Applications (NDA), a consulting firm she founded that served public and private clients throughout southern Africa. NDA administered community development funds for Barclays Bank in Zambia, Botswana and South Africa. She is also a founding board member of the New Haven Coalition for Active Transportation (NHCAT) and an appointed member of the New Haven Historic District Commission. She previously served as chair of the Mayor’s Taskforce on Bike Education in New Haven.
Elsa Holahan (she/her)
Elsa’s research project will embody the quandary of racial identity in North Africa. As a North African herself, she has often pondered how she should racially identify. Without access to her father, and his insight on racial identity as a North African, she found it fitting to center her research around self identity and race in North Africa. The presentation of said research, for the Social Justice Reader Fellowship, will take the form of a podcast. The podcast will be divided into three episodes, the categories of world, community, and identity. All three episodes will be interconnected as they all uplift the research quandary, each adding a different perspective, on a different scale.
Elsa is mentored by Reggie Woolery (he/him)
Reggie Woolery is an artist and educator formerly based in Detroit Michigan. Woolery is a graduate of the Interactive Multimedia Program at New York University. His internet board game, Keep Your Hands Off the Park: A Roleplaying Game in Real and Virtual Worlds looks at the intersection of digital culture and the privatization of public space. Reggie has worked for three historic non-profit arts and educational media distributors, Black Filmmaker Foundation, Third World Newsreel and New American Cinema Group. During this time, he organized social issue and experimental video exhibitions for Artists Space, American Film Institute, The Brooklyn Museum, Bard College, and The Images Festival, Toronto, among others. Reggie Woolery has received arts development support from The New York Foundation for the Arts, The Sidney Poitier Foundation, The Lew Wasserman Foundation, Helena Rubinstein Foundation, Art Matters, Banff Centre for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, and the Independent Television Service.
Sayniel Sawmadal (she/her)
Sayniel has been inspired by her own heritage as the child of two immigrants, to document the history of the Great Migration. As this period in American history was very influential in the development of certain regions, she has decided to create a website to present her findings. Sayniel’s website will break down the history behind freed African Americans who sought refuge elsewhere, to places such as Canada, Mexico, and Liberia to name a few. Another feature of her website will be a timeline, which is a tool readers may use to better place themselves within the historical context. There will also be a section of Sayniel’s website dedicated to her personal experiences and how the Great Migration has impacted her culture. A secondary element to her project is an art piece which she will be crafting to represent the different places in Africa where freed African Americans migrated to during the Reconstruction Era.
Sayniel is mentored by Isaac Bloodworth (he/him)
Isaac Bloodworth is a New Haven native and Black Artist. He is a graduate from the University of Connecticut’s Puppet Arts Program. Bloodworth’s works centers around his blackness and the experiences of the black community in America. He envisions a world in which his original characters not only survive, but thrive.An experienced muralist, Bloodworth collaborated with Citywide Youth Coalition to paint a permanent installation at their Black and Brown Power Center on Chapel Street. His latest mural was installed by The City of New Haven’s Department of Arts Culture and The Town Green Special; Services District at City Hall. One of his favored methods of storytelling is through puppetry, using a style called “Crankie.” He has performed his puppet works for the Lineage Group at Art Space and at City-Wide Open Studios. Through his murals and puppet performances, he hopes to inspire youth in the black community to see themselves in a positive light and help them understand their lived experiences. Bloodworth is on staff at the Yale Center for British Arts. He is affiliated with NXTHVN as well as a company member of A Broken Umbrella Theatre and an improviser in The Regicides.
Tristan Ward (he/him)
Tristan has developed a plan to launch what he has named the CT College Bound BIPOC Student Alliance. His plan is to assist high achieving BIPOC students (grades 6th-9th) by directing them to non-profit educational organizations that will assist them to prepare for and apply to private high schools and boarding schools, such as A Better Chance, Prep for Prep and Reach for Prep.He also plans to help these same group of students to apply to pre-college and academic enrichment programs and talented and gifted programs such as John Hopkins Talented and Gifted, Telluride and Yale Young Global Scholars. Tristan is motivated by the disparaging inequalities that often limit BIPOC students from accessing opportunities and getting a foot in the door career wise. With his organizing he hopes to gain the support of local institutions and other non profit organizations to help advertise his plan to execute the alliance.
Tristan is mentored by Victoria McCraven (she/her)
Victoria McCraven is the Programs Manager at NXTHVN. She is passionate about expanding historical narratives through the visual arts and creating community-based dialogue. Victoria earned her bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, majoring in Geography and minoring in Art History. While at Dartmouth, she worked at the Hood Museum of Art where she curated the exhibition Black Bodies on the Cross which included works by Romare Bearden, Kara Walker, and Ashley Bryan. In 2019, Victoria was selected as a U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Postgraduate Grantee to complete her master’s degree in History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Previously, Victoria was the 2020-2021 Romare Bearden Graduate Museum Fellow at the Saint Louis Art Museum, where she worked on curatorial, education, and audience development projects across the museum.
Jonas Ward (he/him)
Jonas’ curiosity about the Haitian Revolution has led him to write a short chapter book on the topic. He will use his space on the page to stress how significant the Haitian Revolution is in contemporary conversations around race and social justice. Through his research he has learned that a group of extremely mistreated Africans defeated the strongest military in the world, to set up a new free country. Jonas understands that it is a beautiful piece of history, where people fighting for social justice, won. However, he learned the hardships that Haiti has faced doesn’t end there. Due to the nature of Haiti being the first black-led nation, it was heavily disliked by the rest of the world. Haiti faced crippling sanctions at the hands of the United States and European Countries, causing devastating economic impacts on the small country. Today, Haiti still is one of the lowest-ranked countries for GDP per capita, and their president was recently assassinated. By bringing the history of Haiti to the forefront, Jonas has uncovered forms of Black liberation.
Jonas is mentored by Paul Turner (he/him)
Dr. Paul Turner is the Rachel Carson Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, and Microbiology faculty member at Yale School of Medicine. He is an African-American scientist, who grew up mostly nearby the city of Syracuse, NY. Dr. Turner obtained a BA in Biology (1988) from University of Rochester, a PhD in Microbial Evolution (1995) from Michigan State University, and did postdocs at National Institutes of Health, University of Valencia in Spain, and University of Maryland-College Park, before joining Yale in 2001. Dr. Turner studies evolutionary genetics of viruses, particularly phages that infect bacterial pathogens and RNA viruses transmitted by arthropods, and researches the use of phages to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial diseases. He is very active in outreach and service concerning diversity in science, such as American Society for Microbiology’s Committee on Minority Education, and helping K-12 teachers improve STEM education in underserved public schools. Dr. Turner’s honors include Fellowship in the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and American Academy of Microbiology.
Dune Bryant (they/them)
Writer, researcher, an all-around creative, Dune Bryant, is the Program Manager of the Social Justice Reader program. Their background in Black studies and literature has especially informed the program’s development in its first year. Dune works to interrogate and disrupt the narratives in Black culture to reimagine our collective relationships with freedom, ownership, and love.
Dune Bryant is mentored by Salwa Abdussabur (they/them)
Salwa is a queer artist and activist. They are a Teaching Artist and Youth Programs Developer for The Word Poetry working and mentoring young people to be poets and culture creators. Salwa has performed in many event such as: No More Water/ The Fire Next Time: The Gospel of James Baldwin at Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan NYC , (Be)longing at Long Wharf Theater as apart of The International Festival of Art and Ideas, Opened for Ruby Sale at CEIO Deeper Change Forum as well as various community works and organizing. Salwa’s passion for performing arts extends into the industry working with the likes of Donald Glover or Childish Gambino as a background singer on Saturday Night Live .
Rachad Issaka (he/him)
Rachad will be writing and producing a video that confronts the exploitation of Japanese animators in the animation workspace. His video will describe how Japanese animators are systemically underpaid compared to their American counterparts, and how these disparities make life as a Japanese animator significantly more challenging. From their salary to the way they are treated on the job, Rachad has done ample research on how racism has shaped the lives of these animators through the culture around gaming and animation. With his video, Rachad hopes to direct more attention to these inequalities and gain the support of others who feel strongly about unethical labor practices that operate on a global scale. Rachad has withdrawn from the program.
Rachad is mentored by Allison Minto (she/her)
Allison Minto is a Connecticut-based visual artist. Minto’s practice is rooted in photography, community, and field research. Her photography centers African American archives, memory, preservation, and maintenance, and her decision to use archival elements comes from personal experience. Whether digging through her family archives or recognizing the traditional position many Black women in the United States occupy as carriers of generational narratives, Allison attempts to render these experiences visible. Minto also explores ways to bridge her art practice and community.Minto holds an MFA in Photography from the Yale School of Art and a BA in Journalism from SUNY Buffalo State College. Minto is currently a 2020–2021 Happy and Bob Doran Connecticut Artist in Residence, 2020–2021 DocX Archive Lab Fellow at Duke University, and a member of Diversify Photo.
Click here for a list of SJR Advisors + Staff.