Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

Twanna Hodge (she/her/hers) is the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Librarian at the University of Florida Libraries. She holds a BA in Humanities from the University of the Virgin Islands and an MLIS from the University of Washington. Her research interests are diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility issues and efforts in the LIS curriculum and workplace, library residencies and fellowships, cultural humility in librarianship, and the retention of underrepresented and BIPOC library staff in librarianship. She is a 2013 Spectrum Scholar and 2018 ALA Emerging Leader.

Mustapha Mohammed is from Kumasi, Ghana. He obtained a BA and M.Phil. from the University of Ghana, where he taught in the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies for three years. Presently, Mohammed is a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at UF. He teaches the History of West Africa in the History Department and Akan-Twi- language for the Center for African Studies at UF. His doctoral research investigates the relationship between ironworking and social change in Northern Ghana from the beginning of the Iron Age to the Late Iron Age (500 BC- 1400 AD).

Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland College Park. Her research and teaching interests include cultural studies, material culture, food, women’s studies, and the social and cultural history of the United States in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Her books include Taking Food Public: Redefining Foodways in a Changing World and the award-winning (American Folklore Society) Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, & Power. Her new research explores food shaming and food policing in African American communities.

Terri L Bailey was born and raised in Gainesville, FL. This former high school dropout returned to school at 40 and obtained a BS in Elementary Education from Bethune-Cookman University and an MA in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. As a lifelong writer and storyteller, Bailey incorporates her advocacy and organizing work into her poetry, weaving women’s empowerment and social justice issues into spoken word performances. She also integrates the Southern folklore she grew up with and African spirituality in her stories and poems. Her three proudest moments as a writer include winning first prize in the short story competition at Bethune-Cookman University (2010) for The Journey, a modern, Afrocentric adaptation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, performing at the Zora Neale Hurston Festival with the poetry collective If You Ask A Sistah, and most recently being first runner up for Alachua County’s first Poet Laureate. For the past few years, she has been working on When the Witches Ride You: A Collection of Southern Afrofuturistic Speculative Fiction and Black Horror and has started a Patreon page in hopes of raising funds to cover publishing expenses by the end of the year.

Bailey is the Founder of Bailey Learning and Arts Collective (BLAAC -pronounced black). This nonprofit organization focuses on building socially responsible communities and leaders through grassroots organizing, community education, and the arts. BLAAC’s newest program, The Queens Room, offers empowerment tools such as self-care plan development, EFT/TFT (tapping) services, and writing to heal workshops. She hopes to inspire women by sharing how she survived poverty, domestic violence, and sexual abuse.

Terri Bailey is a Yaya and Apetebii Ifa and feels the presence of African spirituality in her life is the grace that continues to save and nurture her.

Werede Hagos was born in Eritrea and raised in Ethiopia. He holds his first degree from the University of Asmara, Eritrea in Archaeology, and an MA degree from the University of Florida in Anthropology. He is interested in the culture and pre-history of human beings. The kitchen is his favorite place, and cooking is his meditation – it allows him to explore the secrets behind each bite. In most societies, especially among the Northeast African communities of Eritrea and Ethiopia, food plays a central role in almost all cultural activities. There is no Ethiopian & Eritrean cuisine in Gainesville; his next plan is to open a restaurant to serve savory, rich, and flavorful foods in Gainesville and beyond.

With a smile often described as blinding, Haitian-born Cynthia “Chef Thia” Verna has a larger than life personality that lights up a room. She is a personal chef, accomplished author, and cooking show host specializing in gourmet, Caribbean-fusion cuisine.

Cynthia Verna is known for infusing Caribbean, African, Latin, Asian, French, and Mediterranean flavors into her Haitian fine dining repertoire. Her professional culinary life started in her mother’s restaurant in Haiti when she was 17 years old. Not long after, she opened her own restaurant – Atelier Les Bamboos. She studied under top Haitian chef Reginald Koury and worked at the prestigious Club Med, before moving to the United States at 21.

She graduated cum laude from Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute in her new home of Miami, Florida. She has been affiliated with two Ritz Carlton franchises and has been a culinary representative for Haitian consulates, presenting at events in Italy, Suriname, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

In May 2017, she became the first woman to win the People’s Choice Award at the Embassy Chef Challenge in Washington DC, representing Haiti and defeating master chefs from more than 30 other countries. She has also been given one of North Miami’s highest distinctions; for her accomplishments in the culinary arts, the city presented a proclamation naming November 18, 2017, ‘Cynthia Verna Day.’

Verna made her debut as co-host of Taste the Islands in June 2017 when the second season of the Caribbean cooking series premiered nationwide on Create TV. In collaboration with the show’s creators, she co-authored her first cookbook called 50 Favorite Haitian Recipes, which upon release entered at #1 in Amazon’s Caribbean cookbook section.

Annie Bakayoko is originally from Ivory Coast. She came to the United States in 2011 and has been living there ever since.

Valerie Phillips is the owner of Gainesville restaurant Caribbean Queen, was born in Kingston, Jamaica. She received a degree in Culinary Arts from the New York Restaurant School in 1994.

Yvonne Ferguson was born in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida and moved to Gainesville, Florida as a toddler. Always yearning for the creative arts, her childhood was spent gravitating to anything artistic — books, graphics, paints, chalks, crayons, and comics — all culminating in a desire to create. After graduating from Gainesville High School, she went on to study Art History at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, Virginia. She has shown her work as a featured artist at the Center for Women’s Studies at the University of Florida, the University of Florida Institute of Black Culture Black Artists Showcase, and the Civic Media Center, Wild Iris Book Store, and Matheson History Museum as part of Artwalk Gainesville. She has also been showcased on ARTlanta and ArtICentric online art magazine as the featured guest artist of the month. She has also been featured as chosen artist backdrop by Blavity.com online news source. Yvonne has participated and won awards in the Millhopper Arts Festival and Downtown Arts Festival.

Yvonne was the featured live painting artist at the Gasparilla Music Festival while painting The Roots live during their performance. She has had several gallery showings at Illsol Studio in Tampa (now Merge Culture Studio), Matheson History Museum, and the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center. Yvonne has completed two murals for the City of Gainesville: on Nina Simone and Donald King, Jr. Yvonne looks forward to her next solo show, Unapologetic Vol. 1 postponed to February 2021 at the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center. Birthed by Yvonne Ferguson, Diasporic Pigments is her celebration of the beauty, history, culture, and people of the African diaspora through art. This online gallery features images of her paintings of cultural and human rights icons as well as notable and groundbreaking musicians.