Kuumba Academy Celebrates Its Class of 2026

Before the fellows ever reached the stage, their vendor tables told the story of what nine months in the program can produce. Delilah Michelle, who works with the county sheriff’s department by day, introduced her production company, Not My Stories to Tell. Her work centers the voices of people affected by incarceration, told through podcast, script, and animated film. One of her most powerful projects grew from a letter written by Elton McEachern, a man serving a fifty-four-year sentence. After she turned his story into a podcast, the governor who heard it granted him a pardon twenty-one years early. That is the kind of weight Kuumba fellows are carrying into the world. You can learn more about her work at www.notmystorestotell.com.

Ebone’ Lockett brought over twenty-two years of teaching English, language arts, and humanities into her own venture, an educational practitioner firm using an arts informed lens to help communities, municipalities, and universities think through impact that is social, environmental, and economic all at once. She has been a published poet since she was thirteen years old, and her table reflected a career built on that same throughline of language and craft.

Angela Harvey came to the microphone with the kind of honesty that only twenty-five years in business can produce. She is the founder and self-described “growthologist” behind Angie Harvey Speaks, where she helps grown folks grow up by motivating them to act, change, and transform. In her interview with Rev. Lettie after the ceremony, Angela described discovering Kuumba almost by accident. She had offered to help Jermaine print certificates for last year’s class, and the offer turned into an application of her own. 

Despite a quarter century of entrepreneurship behind her, she admitted she had never had a business plan, never had a mentor, and had built everything on word of mouth alone. Kuumba gave her language and structure for a gift she already had. She also shared that her documentary, Black Rainbow Love, which unmutes Black LGBTQ stories through joy rather than trauma, has been screened in thirty-six film festivals and has won eleven awards. You can find her full body of work at www.angieharveyspeaks.com.

Chiletta Marie introduced her forthcoming book, Notes to Self, arriving this fall. She described it as a journey in four movements, moving from the mirror to the arena to the threshold to full emergence, built around the truth that so many of us hide behind the language of service instead of showing up for ourselves first.