Author: Vince Robinson

Falecia Stuckey is Executive Board Member of Velo City Riders Cycling Club, a Maryland based
cycling club. Falecia, a cyclist and triathlete, started this Greater Baltimore Area based club in
2017 with 4 other outdoor enthusiasts. Active members enjoy riding together year round in a
relaxed and friendly group atmosphere. Our rides range from short, easy trips for beginners, to
moderately-paced tours with snack breaks, to fast, challenging rides for the more competitive
minded. Volunteer club members organize group rides, leaving from various locations
throughout Maryland, DC and Virginia. Velo City Riders promote fun, fitness, and enjoyment of
DMV area parks, trails and outdoor cycling routes while encouraging membership regardless of
race creed or skill level to engage in enjoyment of the natural environment.

Hampton Roads native and mother, BeKura W. Shabazz Branch has more than decade of grassroots advocacy and activism in the areas of policy, housing, and criminal and economic justice work. Recently, she was recruited to become a professional activist as Virginia's lead for federal legislation on climate change and sea level rise with Virginia Conservation Network. Since leaving that role, she has been vigorously fighting against oppressive and systemic injustices against African Americans alongside all of her other areas of interest.

She is currently the Social Justice and Health Disparities committee chairwoman of the Va. Green New Deal; Chesterfield NAACP Criminal Justice committee chair; and serves on the Internal Policy Committee of the Va Environmental Justice Collaborative.

BeKura is the Founder and President of First Alliance Consulting LLC. and The Criminal Injustice Reform Network. She also founded Mothers Against Mandatory Minimums and Legal Advocates of Virginia where she is currently a legal advocate and certified mediator for families affected by the judicial system.

Dawone Robinson is Eastern Regional Director for Energy Affordability for the Natural Resources Defense Council. In this role, he focuses on promoting increased access to energy efficiency and renewable energy resources for multifamily and low-income households. As part of the Energy Efficiency for All project, Dawone helps organize state coalitions and provides educational support for organizations and individuals working on energy efficiency and renewable energy policies.

He has also served as a member of the Virginia Advisory Council on Environmental Justice, an appointment he received from former Governor Terry McAuliffe. In his previous role, Dawone served as Virginia policy director for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, an organization focusing on climate change impacts and clean energy solutions in Virginia.

Dawone earned his bachelor's degree from Iowa State University and a J.D. from Drake University Law School.

A passion for agriculture and its people drives Cedric Nwafor, a social entrepreneur and public speaker who has organized, facilitated and spoken at various events across Africa and the US.

Cedric is co-founder of ROOTS Africa, a youth-led organization that combats hunger, poverty and exclusion by connecting students and agricultural experts in the US and Africa. While earning his Bachelor’s degree, he visited farms in Idaho and Maryland as well as in Rwanda, Liberia and Uganda to learn different approaches to farm life and management. Along the way, Cedric became an agricultural evangelist, engaging African youth in civic affairs in both cities and rural communities. He believes engaging young people in agriculture is vital to the future of the African continent and the socio-economic well-being of its peoples.

Cedric previously served as a member of the “Power Team” of the Afrika Youth Movement and coordinator for five committees, and as a Mentor and Advocate for Streetwise Partners, an organization supporting low-income populations. He was a 2016 nominee for the African Youth in Agriculture Award and commencement speaker at his graduation from the University of Maryland's College of Agriculture & Natural Resources with a BA in Agriculture and Resource Economics with a focus on Entrepreneurship.

Cedric, who was born and raised in Cameroon, immigrated to the United States in 2010 and now resides in suburban Washington, D.C.

Esther Mitchell is the Master Gardener Coordinator for Prince George’s County, MD and a Program Planner for the Department of the Environment for the past 10 years where She responds to all types of questions and problems regarding plant identification and their habitats, insects, plant diseases. She helps train residents to become Master Gardeners and provide many outlets for volunteer service to attain certification.

Esther teaches a variety of horticultural topics throughout Maryland counties. She also delivers presentations on horticultural subjects at library plant clinics, community and homeowners associations, and garden clubs. Guided by Esther's expertise and knowledge, several community gardens in Prince George’s County were established. She has assisted residents, homeowners associations, community gardeners, Councilpersons and Town Mayors on their beautification programs, and she works with schools, nonprofits and faith based groups to help establish various types of gardens. She has presented professional development courses on planting and maintaining school garden to more than 200 teachers and has worked with schools to help establish vegetable and flower gardens.

Esther has been featured on many radio programs, and she has been quoted in several national and local newspapers on various horticultural subjects and has appeared on NBC4's Rooted in Your Community. She was instrumental in getting the county tree renamed to the Willow Oak.

Esther enjoys teaching youth and adults about the joy and pains of gardening. She believes that you learn life’s basic lessons in the garden.

Tracy Lloyd McCurty, Esq. is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Black Belt Justice Center (BBJC), a legal and advocacy nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and regeneration of African American farmlands and land-based livelihoods through effective legal representation, advocacy, and community education.

For more than a decade, McCurty has served as a legal advocate on a range of issues disparately impacting the African Diaspora community; however, her most cherished work has been in service of multigenerational farm families living on the land in the rural South. In addition to serving farm families and cooperatives, McCurty has provided legal representation to numerous community-based farm organizations that serve diverse farmers and rural communities, including the Oklahoma Black Historical Research Project, the National Immigrant Farming Initiative, and the Southeastern African American Farmers Organic Network (SAAFON).

Before launching the Black Belt Justice Center, McCurty served as the Policy Advisor for the Rural Coalition, a national coalition of 70 community-based organizations representing diverse farmers and farmworkers. In that role, she led coalition efforts to ensure complete implementation of the equity provisions of the 2008 Farm Bill. To ensure maximum participation of African American claimants in the In re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation (“Pigford II”), she drafted and submitted legal memoranda to assist the federal court in its deliberations regarding the coordination and implementation of the Pigford II settlement agreement.

McCurty has demonstrated leadership in her field of work through her participation in several national farm and food equity conferences and symposiums including the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Community Gathering, the Professional Agricultural Workers Conference (Tuskegee University), the Critical Race Studies Symposium (UCLA School of Law), and the International Food Sovereignty Forum (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace). Additionally, she is the co-coordinator and co-author of the Black Agrarianism chapters featured in the 2017 Food First publication, Land Justice: Re-imagining Land, Food, and the Commons.

McCurty earned her Bachelor's of Science at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and her law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill School of Law. She is licensed to practice in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Georgia, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the National Conference of Black Lawyers.

Violet King is an urban farmer, educator and herbalist who has been working to bring healthier food options and farming/gardening and nutrition education to youth and adults who live East of the River for the past five years.

Her work focuses on empowering youth and adults by teaching them how to grow and prepare their own food using sustainable and agro-ecological farming practices.

Violet is passionate about growing medicinal herbs and pollinator plants and promoting land stewardship in order to facilitate healing between people of color and the land.

Mandela Jones is co-founder of ROOTS Africa, a non-profit that connects academic institutions and experts in the U.S. to farming communities in Africa. The organization's mission is to combat hunger and poverty in Africa.

Mandela graduated from The University of Maryland, majoring in Agriculture and Resource Economics with a concentration in Business Administration. His interest in ROOTS Africa started after returning from a farming apprenticeship where he read books and articles on family-owned and African agriculture. Since then, Mandela has been working on ways to improve agriculture at home and abroad.  When he heard about the idea behind ROOTS, he knew he needed to get involved in order to better grasp what his peers in Africa face in agriculture and to develop his problem-solving skills.

ROOTS Africa promotes and leverages collaborations between academic institutions to strengthen agricultural extension services, encourage entrepreneurship, enhance youth engagement in agriculture and increase the productivity of local farmers in Africa. Through the ROOTS Student Club and Global Classroom programs, youth and experts can initiate, support and  advocate for wholistic approaches to community development.

Born and raised in Baltimore, Symone Johnson's interest in marine science started when she participated in the High School Volunteer Program at the National Aquarium. That experience led to her attending Hampton University, where she graduated with her B.S. in Marine and Environmental Science. During undergrad, Symone began to work with youth in her free time, specifically in the Mentoring Young Scientists Program held at the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center. Symone also played a major role in planning and leading sessions at the Teen Environmental Conference, held in Hampton, VA in 2011 and 2012. Symone received the NOAA Educational Partnership Program Undergraduate Scholarship and completed two internships at NOAA facilities. The last internship under this scholarship program sparked Symone’s interest in sharks, so she attended Delaware State University for graduate school studying Sand Tiger sharks in Delaware Bay.

At the end of her graduate career, Symone was selected as a recipient of the Sea Grant John A. Knauss Fellowship and spent one year in NOAA’s Office of Education. Upon completion of the Knauss Fellowship, Symone accepted a position at the National Aquarium as the B-WET Project Coordinator. This program brings Baltimore City Public School sixth graders to the Aquarium campus to complete a set of water quality activities to investigate what lives in the Baltimore Harbor.

Symone also provides professional development and ongoing support for the teachers of participating students to ensure that they are prepared to teach the pre-lesson and post lesson. Symone has introduced a new internship within this program between the Aquarium and local colleges and universities in Baltimore including Morgan State University, Coppin State University, and Towson University.

Currently, Symone manages the education programs at National Aquarium. Aside from her position at the National Aquarium, Symone also works for NOAA as a targeted recruiter into their undergraduate scholarship programs and fellowships. She hosts an online web-based educator video resource called Ocean Today, Every Full Moon. This resource is designed to be used by informal and formal educators, and the general public, to share the many fascinating aspects of the ocean. Collections are released each month (on the full moon) and topics range from “Endangered Ocean” and “Animals of the Ice” to “The Remarkable Horseshoe Crab” and “Maritime Archaeology.”

David Harrington is President and CEO of the Prince George’s Chamber of Commerce. In this role, he is the primary advocate, policy advisor and spokesperson for more than 600 businesses. He has led the Chamber to a “Top 15” regional ranking as determined by the
Washington Business Journal.

Prior to joining the Chamber, David completed fifteen years of public life commencing as Mayor of Bladensburg, Prince George’s County Council Member and Maryland State Senator. During this extensive period of public service, David was President of the Maryland Municipal League, National Chair of Economic Development with the National Association of Counties and Chaired the Maryland State Task Force on Physical Education. He has been twice awarded the Phyllis Newman Award for nonprofit advocacy, Human Services Coalition Legislative Award, Hurston/Wright Ella Baker award, Legislator of the Year from the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, and Economic Development Award from 100 Black Men.

David serves on the Board of Directors of Meyer Foundation, Community Forklift and serves on Robert Wood Johnson’s National Advisory Council. Presently his Chairs the Bowie State University Board of Visitors, the Board of Anacostia River Keeper, CommonHealth ACTION; Consumer Health Foundation; and the Prince George’s County Redevelopment Authority. At Harvard University, David was a faculty member at its Summer Institute on Reading, Writing and Civic Education and at the University of Maryland, he served as Associate Director of the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership. Presently, David is adjunct faculty at the University of Maryland Global Campus.

David holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Howard University and completed graduate work at Miami University of Ohio. He is a resident of Prince George’s County for more than 30 years and is married to Cheryl, business owner of Shortcake Bakery in Hyattsville, Maryland. They have two sons: Stephen, Director of External Affairs at the Greater Washington Partnership and a graduate of Morehouse College and Brown University and current ; and Christopher, Manager and Research Editor at MuniCap, and a graduate of Dickinson College with a MBA/MPP from University of Maryland Smith Business School.

David is a proud grandfather of two wonderful grandchildren.