Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Jasmine Syedullah PhD, and Aqeela Sherrills will hold a conversation to open up the 2021 Pittsburgh Racial Justice Summit. The Opening Ceremony begins at 5:30pm EST on Friday, January 22nd. Register for The Summit to listen to these keynote speakers. You can view the full summit schedule here.
Rev. angel Kyodo williams
Called “the most intriguing African-American Buddhist” by Library Journal, Rev. angel Kyodo williams was made for these times. She has been bridging the worlds of transformation and justice since her critically acclaimed book, Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace was hailed as “an act of love” by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, and “a classic” by Buddhist pioneer Jack Kornfield.
Her work, Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love & Liberation, is igniting communities to have conversations necessary to become more awake and aware of what hinders liberation of self and society. Rev. angel applies wisdom teachings, embodied practice, and is a leading voice for Transformative Social Change. Known for her willingness to sit with and speak uncomfortable truths with love. Rev. angel notes, “Love and Justice are not two. Without inner change, there can be no outer change. Without collective change, no change matters”.
Jasmine Syedullah, PhD
Jasmine Syedullah is a black feminist political theorist of abolition, as well as co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation (North Atlantic Books, 2016). She holds the first Assistant Professor line in Vassar College’s Africana Studies Program, celebrating its 51st anniversary this year. Her current research centers the fugitive writings of formerly enslaved mother Harriet Jacobs’s and her abolitionist vision of freedom. Before joining the faculty at Vassar, Syedullah taught at the University of San Francisco and the University of California Santa Cruz where she completed her PhD in Politics with a designated emphasis in Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness. Out in the world, Jasmine is a core member of the Radical Dharma Movement Project bringing embodied practices of liberation to spaces of social justice, community organizing, and institutional change.
Aqeela Sherrills
Aqeela Sherrills is a spirit-centered activist, working to promote healing in marginalized communities and community ownership of public safety.
Aqeela Sherrills grew up in the Jordan Downs Housing Project in Watts, Los Angeles. A member of the Grape Street Crips, he fled the devastating violence in his community for college. At 19 he began working with football star Jim Brown and co-founded the Amer-I-Can Program, Inc. to heal gang violence around the country by negotiating peace treaties in those cities. In 1992 he brought his message home to Watts itself, and with his brother Daude and a few other key players in the community, forged a historic truce between the Crips and the Bloods in Watts.
When the ceasefire began to fray, the Sherrills brothers created the Community Self-Determination Institute in 1999 to tackle the overwhelming personal and social issues that underlie crime, drugs, and violence, and to draw attention to communities’ Post (and present) Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
On January 10, 2004, Sherrills’ 18-year-old son, Terrell, home from studying theater arts in college, was shot in the back at close range. Determined that Terrell’s death not be in vein, Aqeela embarked on a new phase of work and activism, launching The Reverence Project (“TRP”). TRP work has been to
create intentional space for individual healing and to develop comprehensive wellness centers in urban war zones to introduce those who suffer from high levels of trauma to alternative healing technologies to
support our respective healing journeys.
In 2014, Aqeela was tapped by Newark, NJ Mayor Ras J Baraka to build out his community based public safety initiative. In the 5 years that he’s led the Newark Community Street Team, Newark homicide rate went from 104 in 2015 to 51 in 2019 respectfully.
Aqeela also serves as the Senior Advisor to the Alliance for Safety and Justice’s Shared Safety Initiative—-a national nonprofit working to replace justice and prison system waste with common sense solutions that create safe neighborhoods and save taxpayer dollars. In addition to co-founding Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice—the largest survivor network in the country, he’s also a subject matter expert on victim service and community based public safety providing consulting services to The International Association of Chief of Police. His primary focus with Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice is meeting the unmet needs of victims of crime, which includes healing, recovery and prevention.
