Our Squad
Our Team
Mariama Eversley, Incubation Manager
With a background in anthropology and human geography Mariama works at the intersection of investigation, organizing, documentation, and art. She is motivated by a variety of issue areas including land and climate justice as well as policing and mass incarceration. Her independent research projects have explored gentrification, decolonizing development and the history of settler colonialism in the United States. In her archiving-organizing Mariama co-authored a grassroots glossary project on real estate terminology meant to document and resist gentrification in New Orleans, LA with the organization Blight Out. As a data analyst at the New Orleans Independent Police monitor, Mariama helped expose, challenge and bring national attention to a city-wide camera surveillance plan. As a fellow for the Revolving Door Project, Mariama helped expose federal corruption and outlined pathways for the Department of Justice to decarcerate. As a client advocate and court-side coordinator at the Orleans Public Defenders, Mariama helped facilitate a sex-worker diversion program and assisted lawyers in supporting their clients. Mariama was also a member of BYP100 New Orleans Chapter from 2017-2018. Mariama can be reached at Mariama@blli.org
Youma Traore, Communications Coordinator
Youma (she/her) was born and raised in The Bronx, NY and currently resides in Washington, D.C.. She holds a bachelor’s in Africana Studies and Public Policy from Brown University. Throughout her years in college, she became passionate about transformative justice through her volunteer work in Petey Greene, an organization dedicated to providing academic programs to incarcerated people and steered her passion into her studies. Through her transnational Human Rights study abroad program, she grew a deeper understanding of grassroots power building, solidarity formation, and abolition, which she hopes to utilize to service her communities.
Brianna Gibson, Thought Partner
Brianna (they/she) is an organizer, trainer, direct action practitioner, and strategist. They are a supervising thought partner for the Black Land and Liberation Initiative, and serve as the Director of Action Strategies and Programs at the Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO) Hub. Brianna has had the pleasure of training, facilitating, and collaborating with thousands of organizers across the United States and beyond to envision, strategize for, and organize towards a more liberated world for Black people, and by extension, all people.
Chinyere Tutashinda, Executive Director
Chinyere’s philosophy is, “Educate, Motivate, Inspire – Change the world!” With 15 years of organizing, media production, and training and facilitation experience, Chinyere ́ is a founding member of the BlackOUT Collective, a Black direct action and training collective that believes action and organizing are healing and transformative acts, and is the current Executive Director of the Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO). She has a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Northern Colorado and an M.A. in Media Activism from California State University East Bay. Chinyere uses her education and dedication to the community in all that she does.
CTWO Hub
The Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO) is a racial justice organization dedicated to building a social justice movement led by people of color. For nearly 40 years, CTWO has been at the forefront of training leaders of color to engage in social justice movements that are demanding and creating change for communities that sit at the margins. CTWO is a training organization, resource center, and an institutional pillar of community organizing in communities of color. At our core, we seek to make people fall in love with the movement and show up in the work with deep rigor and joy.
We believe that training those who sit at the margins and strengthening the capacity of organizations that prioritize communities of color will allow us the best opportunities to achieve our goal of building a strategic, culturally relevant and thriving movement. We envision a thriving movement that centers the voices of women, trans folks, queer folks, Black folks, immigrants, folks with disabilities and those formerly incarcerated. We see a movement that prioritizes collaboration and deep strategy. And lastly, we see a movement that sees resilience and joy as intricate parts of our movement.
BlackOUT Collective (est. 2014) is a radical full service direct action organization that builds organizations’ capacity to execute creative and effective direct actions in service of their organizing and advocacy work. We do this through providing personalized direct action trainings and on the ground action support. We see ourselves as a “Liberation Lab”- a container for experimentation, deep space visioning and learning. We believe it is key for Black people to be agents in creating systematic shifts in this county, and we believe that Black people engaging in direct action is a key tactic in creating this change.
BlackOUT Collective, in coordination with partners at Movement Generation, launched the Black Land and Liberation Initiative (BLLI) as an experiment in land-based reparations in 2016.
The Ruckus Society is a multi-racial network dedicated to providing the tools, preparation, and support to build direct action capacity for ecological justice and social justice movements. Since 1996, Ruckus has been the premiere source of training and action support for social justice movements and has trained thousands in theory, strategy, and hands-on tactical skills of nonviolent direct action (NVDA). We work with Indigenous communities, communities of color, and folks on the frontlines of climate change and related injustices, where direct action techniques are most needed and our training has the greatest impact.