RECN UNITY #IGOTNEXT EQUITY CONFERENCE 2.0

Dr. Bettina L. Love is an award-winning author and the Athletic Association Endowed Professor at the University of Georgia. She is one of the field’s most esteemed educational researchers. Her writing, research, teaching, and activism meet at the intersection of race, education, abolition, and Black joy. Dr. Love is concerned with how educators working with parents and communities can build communal, civically engaged schools rooted in Abolitionist Teaching with the goal of intersectional social justice for equitable classrooms that love and affirm Black and Brown children. In 2020, Dr. Love co-founded the Abolitionist Teaching Network (ATN). ATN’s mission is simple: develop and support teachers and parents to fight injustice within their schools and communities. 

She is the author of the books We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom and Hip Hop’s Li’l Sistas Speak: Negotiating Hip Hop Identities and Politics in the New South. H er work has appeared in numerous books and journals, including the English Journal, Urban Education, The Urban Review, and the Journal of LGBT Youth.

Gholnecsar (Gholdy) Muhammad began her career as a reading, language arts and social studies middle school teacher. After teaching in the classroom, she served as a school district curriculum director and was responsible for K-12 literacy instruction, assessments and professional development.

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​She is the 2014 recipient of the National Council of Teachers of English, Promising New Researcher Award, the 2015 NCTE Alan C. Purves Award, the 2016 NCTE CEE Janet Emig awardee and the 2017 Georgia State University Urban Education Research Awardee. She was awarded the 2018 University of Illinois- Chicago, Researcher of the Year and was granted $750,000 by the U.S. Department of Education to study culturally and historically responsive literacy in STEM classrooms. Her book entitled, “Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy” was released in 2020.

Mr. Delbert Richardson is a national award winning Community Scholar, Ethnomuseumologist, and Second Generation Storyteller, of the National Awarding Winning American History Traveling Museum: The "Unspoken" Truths. With the use of authentic artifacts, storyboards, and the ancient art of "storytelling", Mr. Richardson teaches "American History" through an afrocentric lens. His work is broken into four sections: Mother Africa: which focuses on the many contributions by Africans in the area of science, technology engineering, and mathematics (S.T.E.M.), American Chattel Slavery: the brutal treatment and psychological impacts on African Americans of the Diaspora, The Jim Crow era: The racial caste system that focused on the creation and enforcement of legalized segregation, and Still We Rise: which focuses on the many contributions in the Americas; Black inventors/inventions.

Mr. Richardson's work is primarily geared towards k-12th grade students as well as professional development training for (primarily) white female teachers that make up over 79% of the national teaching force. D.E.I. ( diversity/equity/inclusion) training is also a part of Mr. Richardson's portfolio.