Living History Fellow (Elder-in-Residence)

Deborah Mason

Mrs. Deborah Mason, affectionately known as “Mama Debbie,” directs the Sankofa Children’s Museum of African Cultures, and was one of the first female journeyman carpenters in Maryland. During her time as an Elder in Residence, she worked with HBCU Oral History Fellow Dana Green to curate her life history archive called, “Baltimore through the Eyes of Deborah Brooks Mason.”  She also served as a co-curator for “The Colors of Pontella Mason” exhibition.

Community Arts Fellow (Artist-in-Residence)

Brinae Ali

Alexandria “Brinae Ali” Bradley was born and raised in Flint, Michigan and is an interdisciplinary artist who believes in using the power of the arts to transform the conditions of the human spirit. 

Brinae has served as the artistic director of Tapology, Inc. in Flint, MI, Fourth Wall Arts Salon, and Sound and Movement, LLC in Philadelphia. She has also partnered and served as a teaching artist with organizations such as Ping Chong and Company, NJPAC, Moving History in Baltimore, and the Apollo Theater Education Department.  She has also received awards for Best Short Play at the Downtown Urban Theater Festival for her one woman show “Steps” and the Vox Populi Independence Music Award for “Destination Forever: Vol.1 EP.” Her broadway and off-broadway experience include Shuffle Along and STOMP. 

During her time as an Artist in Residence, Brinae Ali worked diligently on The Baby Laurence Legacy Project, an archival/performative process that has birthed an integrated work of jazz tap dance and jazz music that investigates and celebrates the artistic and social influences that “Baby Laurence” Donald Jackson had on the culture of Tap Dance and Jazz Music. Currently, Brinae is a lecturer at Johns Hopkins Peabody Conservatory, co-creator of a work in progress with trumpeter Sean Jones called “Dizzy Spellz”, a member of the Baltimore Jazz Collective, and cultural ambassador for diplomacy through the lense of Hip Hop culture as an artist in residence with Next Level-USA  in partnership with the U.S. Department of State Education and Cultural Affairs, the University of North Carolina, and the Meridian International Center. 

Living History Fellow (Elder-in-Residence)

Charles Dugger

Charles Dugger, a retired Baltimore City school educator who taught in BCPSS for 45 years, used Afrocentric teachings throughout his career touching the hearts and minds of students. Additionally, he founded the Afrikan Liberation Day, Marcus Garvey Day and Kwanzaa celebrations in Baltimore. He worked as a WEAA dj, and started Camp Harambee-The People. He’s been educating youth from an African-centered perspective and organizing cultural events such as the annual Marcus Garvey Day Parade.

Community Arts Fellow

Jeneanne Collins

Jeneanne is a practicing performance poet and community artist, sometimes a mixed-media creator. Recently, she was an Artist–in–Residence at Union Baptist Church where she conducted oral archive interviews as part of the B&O Railroad Museum’s Oral History Project in partnership with the church. Jeneanne developed a series of workshop responses entitled “Churches & Trains,” Black History Every Day. She is also a member of the #nopermission collective, a group of artists that use visual, performance and alternative art to activate/charge historically oppressed spaces.

Spring 2021 Fellowship, Theater and Film, Noah Silas

Noah Silas is an actor, director, and writer for the stage and screen. Formally trained at the Baltimore School of the Arts, Silas has a broad list of film and theater credits as a leader and collaborator on projects throughout the greater Baltimore arts community.

Project: “Blessed Are The Charmed”

‘Blessed Are The Charmed’ is a documentary-drama that charts the life stories of six Baltimore-based artists to render a story about the evolution of Baltimore’s contemporary Black arts and culture scene.

Arts and Social Justice Fellow (Artist-in-Residence)

Dwight Watkins

D. Watkins is Editor at Large for Salon. His work has been published in the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and other publications. He holds a Master’s in Education from Johns Hopkins University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Baltimore. Watkins is a college lecturer at the University of Baltimore. He has also been the recipient of numerous awards including the Dambach Award for Service to the Literary Arts, BMe Genius Grant, and the Maryland Library Association William Wilson Maryland Author Award. Watkins was also a finalist for the Hurston Wright Legacy Award and Books for A Better Life.

Project: “Mask Off”

Mask Off is an interactive game designed to help young men explore their emotions in-depth, in an effort to deal with the crisis of violence in Baltimore City.

Fall 2020 Fellowship, Visual Art, Adam Stab

Adam Stab is Baltimore’s longest-active graffiti writer. He has been formative to the culture of Style Writing since 1984. Since the mid-eighties, the movement of style writing (or graffiti writing) has become the largest, fastest-growing art form on the planet. He attended Baltimore School for the Arts and went on to build a long and diverse career in the visual arts, as a graphic designer, painter, and muralist. He says if he’s known for anything, it’s being part of an era of writers that defined the “Baltimore handstyle.”

Project: “For the Love of the Block, Homage to Baltimore Street Art”

‘For the Love of the Block’ produced a public mural in the heart of West Baltimore that memorializes one of the city’s most important advocates and change-makers, the honorable Elijah Cummings. The fellowship also involved the development of an oral history archive of Baltimore Street Artists and Cultures, 1980-2000.

Jess Douglass

Jessica Douglas is an archivist and researcher from Baltimore whose work focuses on community-based, participatory, and reparative theory and practice in archives and libraries. In addition to her prior work as a reference archivist, she works with individuals and organizations to conduct archival and historical research, particularly related to Black history and local (Baltimore and Maryland) history. She holds a B.A. in Political Science and History from Fordham University in the Bronx, NY and is currently pursuing her Master’s in Library and Information Science at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Xavier Walker

Throughout his undergraduate career, Xavier Walker (BA English and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies) worked with a variety of archives and collections as an intern at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, an EXCEL scholar, and a student worker with Skillman Library’s Digital Scholarship Services. Most notably he spearheaded the ABC Archives Project, a digital archive of over 500 artifacts that chronicle the history and culture of Black life at Lafayette College. Xavier has a passion for community building, and is also a DJ, events curator, and multimedia artist. He nows serves as the Assistant Director of the Billie Holiday Center.

Bria Warren

Bria is a recent master’s graduate who enjoys preserving and learning about various cultures. After receiving her bachelor of arts in political science from the University of Maryland, she traveled to South Korea to teach English. Bria later returned to the U.S. to get her master’s degree in history. As a student in the graduate program at UMBC, she worked in a fellowship at the Maryland Center for History and Culture to preserve history surrounding the anniversary of Freddie Gray’s death.

Deyane Moses

Deyane Moses is a veteran, artist, activist, and curator living in Baltimore, MD. She graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) with a BFA in Photography and an MFA in Curatorial Practice. She received international recognition during her studies for her project, The Maryland Institute Black Archives (MIBA), which documents MICA’s Black history from the 1800s to the present and explores its relationship with Black Baltimoreans. MIBA and its accompanying programs prompted MICA’s President to issue a public statement apologizing for the College’s racist past. In 2020, Deyane founded Blackives, LLC a consulting firm that honors community traditions through postcustodialism.