I am currently working with the Northern Virginia Aids Ministry in Falls Church Va as a Prevention Specialist I am HIV positive since 1999. I am also a participant with the Face to Face program here at NOVAM and I speak to youth in schools and health professionals about life with HIV.
Cornelius Baker has been a committed advocate at the local and national level for nearly two decades. He is currently a senior communications advisor and project director for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease?s National HIV Vaccine Research Education Initiative at AED. He also serves as the National Policy Advisor for the National Black Gay Men?s Advocacy Coalition which is dedicated to addressing the exceptionally and unacceptably high rates of HIV infection among black gay men. From January 2000 through December 20004), Cornelius served as the Executive Director of Whitman-Walker Clinic. Previously, Cornelius served as the Executive Director of the National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA), an appointee at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President George H.W. Bush and as an aide to Washington, DC City Councilmember Carol Schwartz. He is currently a member of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services? Panel on Clinical Practices in the Treatment of HIV and serves on the boards of the Black AIDS Institute, Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the Center for Nonprofit Advancement. In January 2006, he was nominated to serve on the Washington, DC Taxicab Commission by Mayor Anthony Williams and confirmed by the city council to a three-year term.
“Dear Nexus, dismantling white supremacy one question at a time”
Nexus (he/him/his) was born and raised, and has lived his entire life in the traditional territory of the Anacostans and the Piscataway, which many now call Washington, DC. He is Black and Filipino American, and a queer cisgender man who is ethically non-monogamous. Through Dear Nexus, he is committed to dismantling white supremacy through individual coaching, organizational consulting, and community gathering. Nexus helps nonprofits align anti-racism work to the mission, vision, and values of their organization. And he believes that this work can only be done well when it incorporates a harm-reduction lens and includes healing and accountability. Nexus endeavors to work for justice intersectionally, as we cannot dismantle white supremacy without achieving queer liberation. He is adept at speaking for groups of all sizes, and thrives in tailoring the work for the audience and community it’s presented to.
Deedria Faulkner has been a committed public health advocate at the local and national level for nearly a decade. She is currently working as an International Health Educator for a health education and health screening provider. Along with providing outreach in Haiti, she was nominated and became a member of the Western Conference International Committee which builds teams for volunteer missions. Her overall passion is to help change the lives of individuals and family??s worldwide living with HIV/AIDS through education and awareness with the focus of eradicating HIV and AIDS. She received her Bachelor of Science in Public Health from The University of North Carolina where she also worked as a Peer Health Educator for The Public Health Department. In 2008, she worked with the Ujima Project, a mobile STD screening clinic and Needle Exchange Program aimed at identifying HIV and STD-infected individuals and linking them into care and prevention operated by the Baltimore City Health Department, Johns Hopkins University, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She has also worked to improve the health and wellbeing of the citizens of East Baltimore City while working as a Community Health Worker for Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute. Furthermore, she is committed to preventing new HIV infections and eradicating AIDS through research, advocacy, and treatment. She has completed the NCDHHS HIV Counseling, Testing and Referral Certification along with several refreshment courses. She presently volunteers for several HIV/AIDS organizations in NC and Washington, DC. She is presently developing a non-profit organization which provides free testing, counseling and referrals while focusing on a holistic approach to care that supports the spiritual, physical, mental, and social wellness of all that are affected by HIV and AIDS.
Jackie DeCarlo has lived in the DC area for almost 20 years. Her volunteer activities have revolved around her faith community at the Friends Meeting (Quaker) of Washington and professionally she has been a leader and manager of nonprofit programs focused on economic justice. A frequent public speaker and published author, Jackie is interested in helping build awareness and understanding between faith-based and other groups committed to pursuing American values of freedom, respect for difference, and equality.
Clarence J. Fluker is a renaissance man who weaves his words and actions into the discourse on social justice, art & culture and civic engagement in the 21st Century. For several years he served in the Mayor?s Office of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) Affairs in Washington, DC. He worked among community organizations, government agencies and constituents to improve, transform, and ensure the delivery of culturally competent services to thousands of GLBT District residents and employees. Clarence uses his dynamic voice as a tool to advance the dialogue about issues of GLBT people of color. An accomplished writer, he served as a contributing writer to SWERV magazine and has been published in ARISE, and The Life magazines, the acclaimed anthology Spirited: Affirming the Soul and Black Lesbian/Gay Identity from Redbone Press, and the Journal of Intergroup Relations. Online, he has contributed to TheRootDC.com, a subsidiary of The Washington Post and the Gay Life section of About.com. On the topic of race and sexual orientation, he has been an invited speaker to several universities across the United States including Columbia University, George Washington University, Howard University and Ohio University. In September 2010 and 2011 he was as a panelist for the 105 Voices of History Diversity and Inclusion Forum addressing students from each of the 105 Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the United States. He has served as a panelist at the national conference for the National Black Justice Coalition and True Colors, the statewide conference for GLBT young people in Connecticut.
Delan Ellington (He/They) is a passionate fighter for Black Queer liberation in all forms. He recently graduated Magna Cum Laude from Howard University earning an M.A. in Public History with a thesis entitled “For Us, Serving Us, By Us: Prioritizing Black Queer Historical Spaces” based on research he’s collected leading the Rainbow History Project’s (RHP) ClubHouse Oral History Project. The Black Queer DC community now considers him one of the experts in the community’s history and the study of historical Black Queer Spaces. He’s the world’s foremost expert in The ClubHouse, a Black queer after hours disco that introduced House music to the DMV, was the center of the Black queer community between 1975 and 1990, and whose signature event is the precursor to DC’s Black Pride (the oldest and longest continuously running Black pride in the world) and the reason why it is held Memorial Day weekend.
Delan is featured in the 2022 documentary “Fierceness Serve! ENIK Alley Coffeehouse” A black queer short form documentary that world premiered at the 2022 DC International Film Festival. The CoffeeHouse is the location where the first generation of openly gay African American artists, writers, poets, and filmmakers congregated and performed. He was featured in Washington City Paper’s 2021 People’s Edition where they profile around twenty DC residents doing amazing, interesting, or important work in and around the DMV. Furthermore, he had the honor of being the youngest featured speaker at TEDx Foggy Bottom 2022, where he spoke on the importance of prioritizing Black queer historical spaces and publicly laying out a plan to begin to begin memorializing and stewarding them.
Throughout his 11-year fight for social equality and justice he’s been a member of many Black Queer Feminist organizations. Currently, he organizes with Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, a Black Femme & Queer led abolitionist organization. During their 2021 Boycott Nellies block Parties, He was a central and consistent Presence. He has worked with BYP 100’s DC Chapter and served as chair of the board for No Justice No Pride’s 501c 3 application after organizing with them for several years. He helped lead the 2015 University of Missouri student protests that resulted in the ouster for the System president and the University’s Chancellor. For his work building and maintaining the racial, sexual, and generational coalitions that achieved their goals Delan was featured in Spike Lee’s Two Fists Up ESPN documentary, awarded the 2016 Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Award and Mizzou 39 distinction where 39 members of the graduating class were recognized for academics, leadership, sports, volunteerism, and/or impact on the campus community.
He has served a two-year term on RHP’s board of directors where he co-chaired the programs committee created and the Black Queer History Committee. Currently, he is in the process of initiating the Memorialization Committee where he aims to lead the group successfully applying for historical queer spaces in DC to be recognized on the DC and National Register of Historic Places.
He’s considered an innovative GNC trailblazer professionally and aesthetically. Delan’s bold looks have been featured in the Blade and Metro Weekly. In the international Gay Rugby community, he’s known as the person with the audacity to wear a full face of make-up during matches as to showcase the expansiveness of GNC identities and expressions.
Delan has over a decade of public speaking and presenting experience, which has enabled him to be comfortable holding the attention and interacting with any audience. These qualities are important, as they allow connections to be made and growth to be shared, and learning to occur. It’s important for him to give back to the community and spread knowledge about important events in queer history, especially those that center Black people and other intersectionally marginalized communities within the queer population.
Topics he can speak and present on include Black Queer Feminism, Black Queer History, Queer History, Black Queer Spaces, DC Queer History, History of Black queer organizations, Black queer luminaries, nationally recognized historic queer spaces, inclusion in organizations, mental health in the queer community (from personal experiences), and History of Dance music and how Black and queer people were central in its creation and longevity.
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Rev. Jason Carson Wilson is an authorized United Church of Christ minister. Wilson serves as Justice & Peace Policy Fellow in United Church of Christ, Justice & Witness Ministries’ D.C. office, where he lobbies for just domestic policies. He also serves as adjunct minister at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, D.C. Wilson is also a member of Dignity Washington. He’s a graduate of Chicago Theological Seminary, where he founded the Bayard Rustin Society. Wilson is a former newspaper reporter.
Sean Bugg is co-publisher and editorial director of Metro Weekly, Washington, D.C.’s gay and lesbian news magazine. A founding writer for the 14-year-old publication, Bugg took the editorial helm in 2000. During his tenure, Metro Weekly has grown into a major voice for the LGBT community, winning numerous awards for writing, design and community service. In addition to his journalism career, Bugg has worked in social marketing and HIV prevention programs for the Whitman-Walker Clinic and the National Alliance of State & Territorial AIDS Directors. A member of the D.C. chapter of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, Bugg received his journalism degree in 1989 from Washington & Lee University in Virginia.
Dr. Selma Massey is the Founding Pastor of WHOSOEVER Ministry which began 1996 as a Christian television show for the LGBT Community in Southeast Michigan. In 2003 Dr. Selma, as she is known, opened the first of two churches in Detroit, Michigan and in an area suburb.