“May-teenth”- Part I of AHCAC’s Juneteenth Discussion Series

 

 

Derek T. Davis is a writer, history advocate, presenter, and storyteller who has a successful track record of creating and managing cultural programs, and African-centered historical projects in South Florida. Currently, he serves as the manager of Davis Kuumba Arts LLC, the president of the Trailblazers of Broward County, a member of the Broward County Historic Preservation Board, an advisory to the Old Dillard Foundation, and a cultural consultant to the City of Pompano Cultural Division. Although he is actively working with several community projects, he is retired. He formerly was the curator at the Old Dillard Museum, he was the Head of Exhibits and Programs at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center, and once was the Executive Director of the Black Archives, History, and Research Center of South Florida. In his early career, he was a Senior Communications Specialist at Florida Power & Light Company, and a reporter for the Miami Times, and the Miami Herald.

 

 

Dinizulu Gene Tinnie is a New York-born, Miami-based visual artist and designer, writer, retired educator, and an activist and consultant in historic preservation projects and cultural affairs, with an academic background in foreign languages, linguistics, and literature, having earned graduate degrees both in the U.S. and, as a Fulbright scholar, in France.

He is founder and co-director of a Middle Passage Ship Replication Project, to build a full-scale International Traveling Museum, Educational Resource Center, and Ancestral Memorial Shrine (which is currently in the process of creating a virtual replica experience), and collaborates extensively with other individuals, organizations, and communities in commemorating local, national, and global Middle Passage history and heritage, including the UNESCO Slave Route Project.

His writings have appeared in newspapers, magazines, and such scholarly publications as the venerable Journal of African American History, and his artwork, including drawings, paintings, sculptures, and graphic designs, in addition to public art commissions, exhibition designs and installations, and memorial monument designs, has been has widely exhibited, collected, and celebrated.

Mr. Tinnie is the recipient of numerous awards, grants, and recognitions including a 2011 Miami-Dade County Pillars Award, the 2013 JM Family African American Achievers’ Award in Arts & Culture, selection as a 2017 national HistoryMaker, a 2018 BMe Community Genius Award, 2020 official recognition for achievement in the U.S. Congressional Record, and a 2021 Knight Foundation Champion of the Arts Award, among others.

He is married to Literature Professor Emerita Wallis Hamm Tinnie, Ph.D. The Tinnies have two daughters.