About Us
Brenda Berrian, Ph.D.
Brenda F. Berrian, Ph.D., is the chair and professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh: www.africanastudies.pitt.edu. Her areas of specialization are African and Caribbean women writers; French Caribbean music; and musical soundtracks for French African and Caribbean cinemas. She is the recipient of the 2005 Festival International Zouk award, the NEH Summer Institute to Senegal, the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to Puerto Rico, and the Rockefeller Bellagio.
K. Mensah Wali
K. Mensah Wali, Artistic Director of Kente Arts Alliance www.kentearts.org , has been involved with the production and booking of arts programs since his high school days in Brooklyn, NY (1960). He was the Artistic Director of the International African Arts Festival from 1971 to 2001.
Mr. Wali has been on the Council of Elders - Dance Africa at The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) since 1990. Some of the organizations he has worked with in various capacities are: The Caribbean Cultural Center, Kwanzaa Expo, Lincoln Center Outdoors, The Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus, the New Muse Museum and Restoration Corporation. In addition to his responsibilities with Kente Arts Alliance, he is a partner in Journey Agents, an artist booking company.
Sabira Bushra
Sabira Bushra is the Executive Director of the Partnership for Minority HIV/AIDS Prevention www.pmhap.org . When Sabira is not dedicating her time to HIV/AIDS issues, she works with and provides various services to local and regional artists and arts organizations. Ms. Bushra’s experience in presenting arts and provide various forms of capacity-building and technical assistance to arts organizations and individual artists spans 20 years.
Sabira was part of a four-person board that presented the Harambee II Arts Festival between 1988 and 1992. Harambee was the largest African Arts festival in the tri-state area. She is a dance enthusiast and has been a devoted student of Djembe, Afro-Cuban and Salsa dance forms for more than two decades.
Edda Fields-Black, Ph.D.
Edda Fields-Black, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of History at Carnegie-Mellon University. Professor Fields-Black is author of DEEP ROOTS: RICE FARMERS IN WEST AFRICA AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA (INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2008). She serves as the Faculty Advisor for Carnegie Mellon’s African and African American Studies Minor and teaches courses on African history from the early pre-colonial to the neo-colonial period, slavery and freedom in Africa and the New World, West African history, globalization in African History, and the making of the African Diaspora. Her research has been funded by the Woodrow Wilson, Ford, Annenberg, and Mellon Foundations as well as by Fulbright-Hays.
Mbye Cham, Ph.D.
Mbye Cham, Ph.D., is Chairman of the African Studies Department at Howard University http://www.coas.howard.edu/social_sciences.html#african and has been part of the African Studies Department since 1986. Dr. Cham is a native of The Gambia, West Africa and is fluent in Woloof, French and Krio. Dr. Cham participated in the 20th Festival PanAfricain du Cinema de Ouagadougou (FESPACO) in Burkina Faso and has been a peer reviewer for Research in African Literatures, Canadian Journal of African Studies, Studies in Twentieth Century Literature, The African Studies Review, The Howard Journal of Communications, The Journal of Negro Education, The PMLA and other film and literary journals.
Thomas C. Chatman
Thomas C. Chatman is a native of Pittsburgh and the Founder and Executive Director of Pittsburgh Dance Ensemble. Mr. Chatman brings experience in project management, program/organizational development, as well as, program implementation. As an artist, Mr. Chatman initially started training as a dancer and drummer in 1997 and has trained with the late Shona Sharif; and Assane Konte-Artistic Director and Medoune "Dom" Yacine Gueye, former Music Director of Kankouran West African Dance Company based in Washington, D.C.
Fred Logan
Fred Logan is currently a member of the board of directors of Kente Arts Alliance, Inc. which produces African arts programs in various genre, and Right and Responsibilities, a social justice organization that uses film as a tool to address human rights issues. He is also the coordinator of the Homewood Brushton Roundtable, a 22 year-old forum of community-based organizations. In the 1980's, Fred was a member of Jazz Monday and a founding member of Harambee of Pittsburgh, Inc. He was also the film festival coordinator for the National Black Programming Consortium.
Anthony B. Mitchell, D. Ed.
Anthony B. Mitchell, D. Ed., is the assistant director of Continuing Education, University-Community Programs at Penn State University, Greater Allegheny Campus. When Dr. Mitchell is not devoting his time to campus and community outreach and teaching, he lends his talents and skills to the region’s African American and West African drum and dance communities. Dr. Mitchell is a talented musician and for nearly two decades has specialized in Djembe percussion and music of the Diaspora.
Saihou O. Njie
Saihou O. Njie, a native of the Gambia, West Africa has lived and worked in Pittsburgh, PA, for over 20 years. Mr. Njie is a photographer and multimedia artist specializing in abstract images translated through batik, and other mixed media. He is a Teaching Artist with the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and has worked with the Manchester Craftmans’ Guild and the Mattress Factory. He is the owner of Makitaara Studios.
