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A Conversation with BIPOC Community Leaders

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Intentional Communities are the future of ecological and cultural sustainability. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) have often been left out of the conversation but have been doing community for lifetimes. Join us to hear the voices of people working to reclaim the land and build community.
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This session will include panel discussion and live Q&A with BIPOC leaders in the intentional community and land reclamation movements. Produced in partnership with the Foundation for Intentional Community, Grassroots Economic Organizing, and Kola Nut Collaborative. Learn about our guest speakers below!
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All event donations will support the BIPOC Intentional Communities Fund.
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Register above to join this live event on Zoom and/or to receive the recording in case you can’t make it. Wednesday, December 9th | 1-3pm pacific / 4-6pm eastern (See your local time).

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Meet the Panelists

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Marcus Briggs-Cloud

Marcus Briggs-Cloud(Maskoke) is a language revitalizer, scholar, musician and co-director of Ekvn-Yefolecv Maskoke ecovillage. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, he is currently a doctoral candidate in interdisciplinary ecology at the University of Florida where his work intersects ecology, liberation theology, linguistics.  Marcus received awards for his Maskoke hymn album Pum Vculvke Vrakkuecetv, and in 2012 served as composer/choir director for the Vatican canonization liturgy with Pope Benedict XVI for Saint Kateri Tekakwitha. He is partnered to Tawna Little (Maskoke) and they have two children, Nokos-Afvnoke and Hemokke, with whom Marcus enjoys speaking exclusively in the Maskoke language.

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Crystal Byrd Farmer

Crystal Byrd Farmer is a North Carolina native active in the cohousing and polyamorous communities. An engineer turned educator, she speaks and writes about ways communities can be more welcoming to people of all kinds of backgrounds. Crystal is the website editor for Black & Poly, an organization promoting healthy polyamorous relationships for people of color. She also serves on the Editorial Review Board of Communities Magazine published by the Global Ecovillage Network-United States. Her book The Token: Common Sense Ideas for Increasing Diversity in Your Organization was published in late 2020. Crystal is passionate about encouraging people to change their perspectives on diversity, relationships, and the world.

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Mike Strode

Mike Strode is a writer, cyclist, IT consultant, facilitator, and solidarity economy organizer residing in southeast Chicago whose community engagement work has included ride leadership with the Chicago chapter of Red, Bike & Green; editorial and archival oversight for Fultonia; and co-facilitation of Cooperation for Liberation Study & Working Group. He is founding coordinator of the Kola Nut Collaborative, a time-based service and skills trading platform which promotes timebanking throughout Chicago. He also serves as a current board member for Dill Pickle Food Co-op and US Solidarity Economy Network.

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Ridhi D’Cruz

(they/them) is a queer person from South India who moved to Wapato Valley (Portland) in 2010. They have dedicated over a decade of their life to designing community processes that cultivate shared senses of place. As QTBIPOC (Queer/Trans Black/Indigenous/People of Color), they believe that we have a birthright to belong. To be well. To reclaim our ancestral lifeways and to experience radical forms of care and support. Currently an Executive Director of a grassroots placemaking nonprofit organization City Repair Project based in Wapato Valley, or Portland, Oregon, USA – the ancestral lands of the Cathlamet, Molalla, Willamette, Multnomah, Clackamas, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Chinook and several other groups both recognized and unrecognized. They facilitated conversations on Power and Privilege through Oregon Humanities Conversation Project from 2018-2020. They’re also a Council member for a BIPOC herbal medicine apprenticeship called the Atabey Medicine Program where we focus our energy on collective liberation and healing justice.

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Kanerahtiio Roger Jock

My name is kanarehtiio Roger Jock of bear clan family of the mohawk people. I come from a small village Akwesasne in Upper New York State. I am an educator and activist on various fronts.

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Malikia Johnson

The daughter of Vanessa Howell and Eric Johnson, the granddaughter of Claretha and Willie B. Johnson and Patricia Caver and Charles Johnson. Malikia is a builder of community, a capoeirista, a dancer, and an oral historian. She is a Howard University graduate with two B.A. degrees in Sociology and Africana Studies. Johnson is a core member of the Grassroots Economic Organizing Collective and the founding co-creator of the Take Care of Each Other World Tour- a project that interviewed brilliant movers and shakers in seven U.S. cities, Ghana, and Europe about their sustainable visions for the future. Her work is prismatic – angling between placemaking, design, and the brilliance of the commons. She is also a worker owner at Design for the Commons- a consulting worker cooperative providing systems of care and connection in neighborhoods and workplaces around the U.S.

Ashley Scott

Ashley Nicole Scott is a visionary entrepreneur, creative executive, REALTOR, and CEO of The Mobile Mavens. She currently serves as the Vice-President of The Freedom Georgia Initiative formed in 2020 to create a thriving safe haven for black families in response to dealing with racial trauma, a global pandemic, and social-economic instabilities.

The Freedom Georgia Initiative is a black-owned, woman-owned, family-owned, veteran-managed, limited liability company organized in Georgia for the social and economic benefit of our partners. The Freedom Georgia Initiative seeks to support black-owned, women-owned, veteran-owned businesses by providing contracts to well-qualified minority vendors to do business with our company in an effort to support economic development and generational wealth for Black Americans.