Category: Taking Nature Black

Corina Newsome is the Community Engagement Manager for Georgia Audubon and a biology Master’s student at Georgia Southern University. Newsome, who began in the field of wildlife conservation as a zookeeper, currently conducts research to conserve the MacGillivray's Seaside Sparrow and connects people with birds across the state of Georgia.

Having experienced the hurdles faced by people of color interested in wildlife careers, she has founded several programs to encourage high school students from underrepresented demographics to consider careers in wildlife sciences. Her mission is to center the perspectives and leadership of historically oppressed communities in wildlife conservation, environmental education, and exploration of the natural world. 

Rabiah Nur is an Indigenous healer, activist, storyteller, speaker, ceremonialist and daughter of the Great Mother. Nur’s work in the world is to heal and empower through connection to nature, to spirit, and to their innate wisdom. She works to facilitate a rebirth of a new and healthy society where women are valued, empowered, whole and are held as the sacred beings that they are.

Currently, Nur consults with and teaches at conferences, gatherings, schools, religious organizations, and retreat centers to offer Earth-based spiritual teachings, grounding energetic work, collective healing for teams and work groups, and education about appropriate use of Indigenous practices and traditions. She has co-designed an initiative in partnership with the Patuxent Riverkeeper called Honoring Our Sacred Waters, which exists to increase awareness of the spiritual connection between people and water through honoring, ceremony, and education.

Omowalé-Kétu Oladuwa is a New York native, the son of Carrie and John Taylor, Margaret Fisher and Tyrone Foster, and the cultural student of “Chief” James Hawthorne Béy. He is the author and vocalist of Poetry discovered Oladuwa on death row where he calibrated his Afrikan identity and wrote himself anew.

Married 33 years, the father of five earned a B.S. in professional theatre, an MSJ in journalism,and worked 25 years in those two fields.

He blogs at rootfolks.com. His latest published works include: bone sutures—unwiring the mathematic of blackbody otherness (2017); in the tradition—all/ways moving freedom forward (2018); and nitefall: a c-19 radicalblues (2020). Oladuwa lives and writes from Fort Wayne, IN.

Victoria Owens is the Special Agent in Charge of the Investigations Unit and has worked with the OLE for the past 19 years. She began as a wildlife inspector trainee, progressed to a wildlife inspector, and eventually became a special agent where she worked in Ohio and Hawaii. Some of her main duties included enforcement of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals and she has provided instruction at the International Law Enforcement Academy in Gaborone, Botswana. In this role, she liaisons with OLE’s International Attachés stationed in various locations worldwide and as a senior special agent she has worked projects, such as the Service’s Barrier Analysis team and the Targeted recruitment team.

Owens has graduated from the Pacific Leadership Academy Senior Leader, FBI – LEEDA Supervisor Institute, and the U.S. Army’s Military Police Leadership School, where she later became a company commander and combat veteran. Owens has a B.S. in Animal Science from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Public Administration at Arkansas State University.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Akiima Price is an award-winning creative thinker and doer who links people, places, and programs with stressed, underserved communities. A Washington, D.C. native, Price is a nationally respected thought leader at the intersection of social and environmental issues and the relationship between nature and community well-being. Her innovative programming strategies feature nature as a powerful medium to connect stressed youth, adults, and families in meaningful, positive experiences that affect the way they feel about themselves, their communities, and their parks.

From her early career experiences as a National Park Service Interpretation Ranger at Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Boulder City, Nevada, to her national work with environmental and social service organizations, she has cultivated her experiences into cutting-edge best practices in trauma-informed environmentalism. Currently, Price, as head of Akiima Price Consulting, consults with the National Park Foundation and the National Park Service to build a friends group for Anacostia Park which includes River Terrace Park, Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, and the Frederick Douglass Historic Home. This group will ultimately use Anacostia Park to engage Wards 7 & Ward 8 families in activities that support mental health, physical health, and social well-being while using community assets to help support park challenges.

Brenda Richardson is an eco-feminist and has been working on environmental justice, economic development, health issues, and welfare reform for the past 25 years. Richardson helps lead the group, Friends of Oxon Run Park, and is also a member of the Anacostia Park and Community Collaborative. She is passionate about using nature as a source of connection and healing, and attends a forest bathing group that meets in Oxon Run.

She is also an environmental justice advocate and works on connecting people to Oxon Run Park. She serves as the President of Chozen Consulting, LLC, a consulting company that focuses on community engagement, facilitation, training, and government relations, and is the principal for “Women Like Us,” an initiative that focuses on design thinking for women. Richardson was formerly the Deputy Chief of Staff for Councilmember Marion Barry. She also served as the Managing Director of the Metropolitan Dialogue, a group of people of faith who met monthly to discuss civic issues in D.C. for many years.

She is a former board member of A Greater Washington, Anacostia Watershed Society, Congress Heights Main Streets, DC Commission of Women, DC Public Library Trustee, DC Water Trustee. She has a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan and a Master’s of Social Work from the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Alan Spears is the Resident Historian and Senior Director for Cultural Resources at the National Parks Conservation Association in Washington, DC. He uses real-life stories and a conversational style to connect with his audiences to promote NPCA’s advocacy and the critical role the National Park Service plays in protecting, interpreting, and managing this nation’s historic and cultural resources.

A veteran advocate and member of the Government Affairs department, his recent victories include joining with NPCA colleagues, partners and allies to win the designation of the Fort Monroe, Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad, Colonel Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers, Pullman, and Birmingham Civil Rights National Monuments.

Spears currently manages NPCA’s defense of the Park Service’s National Heritage Area program and serve as NPCA’s lead lobbyist for the campaign to establish a Julius Rosenwald & Rosenwald Schools national park site. He remains the only NPCA staff member to ever be rescued from a tidal marsh by a U.S. Park Police helicopter.

Subria Spencer is a public health professional serving as Deputy Liaison and Communication Specialist for the National Park Service (NPS) Office of Public Health (OPH) in Washington, D.C. In her role, Spencer leads and coordinates communications and education efforts to advance the goals of all programs within the OPH. Before joining the Park Service full-time, she completed a two-year assignment with the OPH as part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Public Health Associate Program (PHAP), and served as a co-producer of the film, Twenty & Odd. Through digital storytelling, Spencer and the creative team highlighted parks as places for education, recreation, health and healing while honoring the beauty, experiences, and values of Black culture that have helped to shape America.

Spencer is a native of Auburn, AL and currently resides in Washington, D.C.

Jason Ward is a birder, science communicator, and host of the award-winning Birds of North America, “a web series that aims to provide a fresh take on birds and birding.” Born and raised in the Bronx, Ward’s love for wildlife began at a young age, as he fell in love with dinosaurs. This infatuation provided him with an escape from the obstacles that growing up in the south Bronx presented. Ward's mission is to “impact, inspire and infect” those around him with a greater appreciation for wildlife, and to blaze a trail for future generations of conservationists growing up in underrepresented communities. In early 2020, Ward was named one of the Grist 50, an annual list of emerging leaders from across the U.S. who are working on “fresh, real-world solutions to our world's biggest challenges.”

In 2020, Ward co-organized the launch of Black Birders Week, a week of events celebrating diversity in birding, and currently works for the American Bird Conservancy.

Beattra Wilson is the new Assistant Director for Urban & Community Forestry at the U.S. Forest Service in Washington, D.C. She previously worked as National Urban and Community Forestry Program Manager at the Forest Service, providing program guidance, budget coordination, grants management and strategic planning leadership for national, regional and state urban and community forestry programs.

As a diversity strategist, Wilson co-chairs the Executive Committee of the USDA 1890 Task Force-- convening USDA Senior Officials and 1890 Land Grant HBCU Presidents and Agriculture Deans to advance the partnership and vision for historically Black land grant institutions and the communities they serve. Wilson served three years on the Forest Service Environmental Justice Board, promoting initiatives that improved access and awareness of federal programs to minority communities and stakeholders and generated a pipeline of new minority and millennial students pursuing forestry and natural resources careers.

In 2016, Wilson served as Deputy Associate Director of Forests and Public Lands at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where she was responsible for forest management policy, wildfire suppression budgets, and federal agricultural an environmental workforce diversity. Wilson holds a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Forestry from Southern University and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Kennesaw State University.