Skirball Talks: Agents of Change

Laura Flanders, a best-selling author and broadcaster, is host of “The Laura Flanders Show,” a TV and radio program which serves as an online channel for in-depth conversations with forward-thinking people who have real experience of shifting power, from the few to the many, in the worlds of arts, entrepreneurship and politics. She is a contributing writer to The Nation and Yes! magazine (“Commonomics”). She was the founding host of Your Call, on public radio, KALW, and CounterSpin, the nationally-syndicated radio program from the mediawatch group FAIR.

Ruchira Gupta, CEO and founder of the anti-trafficking organization Apne Aap, which serves more than 20,000 at risk and prostituted girls and women and their family members. She is a journalist, social justice activist, and feminist campaigner, has been a visiting professor at NYU and Distinguished Scholar at University of California, Berkeley.

Arturo O’Farrill, Artistic Director and founder of the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the performance, education, and preservation of Afro Latin music.  He is a pianist, composer, and educator who recently organized the program Fandango At the Wall which featured 50 artists who came together in performance on both sides of the border barrier at San Diego / Tijuana.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din, CEO and founder of #MeWe International Inc., which leverages the science of storytelling and communications as a tool for healing, building resilience, and community-building particularly in refugee communities.

Cristal Chanelle Truscott, Artistic Director of Progress Theatre.  Currently a visiting progressor at George Washington University, she is an artist, scholar, educator, dialogue facilitator.  As a playwright, she blends academic and pop-culture conversations to examine the concerns and struggles of our times.

Anthony Arnove is a producer, writer, and editor. In 2007, Arnove and Howard Zinn cofounded Voices of a People’s History of the United States, a non-profit arts, education, and social justice organization. He wrote, directed, and produced The People Speak with Howard Zinn, and co-edited with Zinn the book Voices of a People’s History of the United States.

Staceyann Chin is a highly respected spoken-word poet, performing artist and LGBT rights political activist. In 2009, Chin performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn‘s 

Martha Redbone is an American blues and soul singer of part Cherokee, Choctaw, European and African-American descent. Her music is a mix of rhythm and blues, and soul music influences, fused with elements of traditional Native American music. Martha Redbone and Grammy-winner Aaron Whitby just received the 2019 Creative Capital Award for “Daughters of the Hills”, a new interdisciplinary musical theater work that brings to light parts of American history that have never been told.

Shawn Touriz is a student at Maxine Greene High School for Imaginative Inquiry. His dream is to become a professional actor and filmmaker.

Wallace Michael Shawn is an American character actor, voice actor, playwright and essayist.