E Morales-Williams
E Mari Morales-Williams, PhD (they/she)
Originally from East Harlem and the Bronx, NY, E has called Philadelphia their teacher and sanctuary for the past sixteen years. E is an educator, cultural organizer, healing justice practitioner, and youth advocate who has worked in schools, community centers, universities, local and national community organizations, and grassroots collectives. For over twenty years they been steeped in an anti-capitalist and ant-imperialist framework through the lineage of Black queer feminism. They are founding members of Black Youth Project (BYP) 100, TUFF Girls, and Educators for Consent Culture. They have a Masters and Ph.D. in Urban Education and credit the global Black freedom movement as their true training grounds.
Awarded Grants
2023
Window of Opportunity Grant (WOO)
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Overview
E Morales-Williams has written a YA non-fiction book based on the arts based, activist driven collective they started called TUFF (Turn Up for Freedom) Girls. The book, Turn Up for Freedom: Notes for all the Tough Girls* Awakening to Their Collective Power, archives stories from TUFF Girls, and also features activities, reflection prompts, and other resources targeted towards young people for future community organizing work through creative arts. E, as well as accompanying TUFF Girls alumni, have been invited to facilitate a workshop and showcase the new book at the “In Solidarity We Rise” Conference hosted by the Justice and Joy National Collaborative. This conference will take place in Oakland, California from November 8-10, 2023 and will bring together various gender justice organizations. In addition, while on the West Coast, they will be facilitating another workshop on community organizing with Radical Monarchs, an organizing collective similar to TUFF Girls.
The WOO Grant will help fund travel, lodging, and food expenses for both E and their accompanying alumni to attend the conference and workshop.
2016
Art and Change Grant (ACG)
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Overview
Mari will facilitate the creation of a short film to document the lives of the staff and youth of T.U.F.F. (Turn Up for Freedom), an arts based activist driven leadership program that uses participatory action research to creatively address the injustices that Black and Latina girls are facing. The project will teach participants video and photography skills in order to document their experience at T.U.F.F. as well as their lives at home, school, and the block. The intent of this project is to use the video as an organizing tool with other middle and high school students, offer political education, and show how young people resist and experience the school to prison pipeline.
Partner
2014
Art and Change Grant (ACG)
Related grantees
Overview
Mari will conduct a 12-week program where high school girls, ages 14-18, will focus on anti-violence work using art for healing, activism, and community organizing. Addressing issues of race, gender, and sexual violence, the program will use dance as an impetus for community building and prompt young black and Latina women to use dance, movement, and spoken word to create safe spaces for individual and collective healing. In the process, these same girls will be lifted up to become community leaders as they plan three community events that promote anti-gender violence through the arts. The program will be documented through film.
