Jesse Huddleston | Board Chair | He/She/They/We

Jesse Huddleston comes from a family full of artists, educators, and public servants, all from North Carolina, where he has lived since 2006. As a Black genderqueer artist and practitioner inspired by Pauli Murray, Jesse continues to develop their deep passions for people, equity, and the arts through expansive, creative vocations focused on connecting people and engaging in community.

Currently, Jesse works as Senior Program Coordinator of the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership at Duke Community Affairs, as Director of Music Ministry at CityWell United Methodist Church, and as Chair of the Pride: Durham, NC Planning Committee at the LGBTQ Center of Durham. They hold a Bachelor's degree in Sociology from Duke University as well as a Master's degree in Counseling from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Beth Ione Ward | Board Vice Chair | She/Her

Beth Ward has worked for more than 30 years in the non-profit sector, with specialties in writing and editing, grant proposal development, higher education governance, and accreditation. She is currently employed as Senior Writer at VentureWell, a national organization whose mission is to provide inclusive and equity-informed entrepreneurship training, mentorship, and resources to inventors and innovators developing technologies focused on addressing climate change, health care challenges, and other pressing societal issues.

Beth was 12 years old when she met Pauli Murray. The Wards were members of St. Philip’s Chapel in Aquasco, Maryland, where Pauli came to serve as seminarian in preparation for ordination to the Episcopal priesthood. (St. Philip’s was a rural Black church where, decades earlier, Pauli’s uncle, the Rev. Small, had been pastor.) Pauli quickly became part of the family circle, a deep connection that continued until Pauli’s death in 1985. For Beth, Pauli was a beloved friend and mentor whose influence continues to resonate four decades later. She is thrilled to be part of the Pauli Murray Center’s efforts to uplift Pauli’s life and legacy for new generations.

Beth identifies as a white lesbian-feminist pacifist. Her participation in the human rights movement has included anti-war, anti-racism, HIV/AIDS, women’s rights, abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and worker’s rights activism – oftentimes inspired by Pauli. She makes her home in Western Massachusetts.

Brian Truelove | Treasurer | He/him

Brian Truelove is a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) executive with more than 15 years of experience. Throughout his DE&I career he has led the development and management of strategic practices for enhancing an inclusive and equitable work culture for multiple large, global organizations.

Brian began his career in accounting and continues to leverage his strong business acumen. Brian holds a Bachelor of Business in Accounting from Western Illinois University and a Master of Business Administration from Bradley University. Brian also holds a nationally recognized HR certification, Society for Human Resource Management’s Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP).

Chandra Guinn | Secretary | She/Her

Chandra Guinn is a local Mississippian who lived in Iowa & Maryland before making her home in North Carolina. She completed degrees in Sociology at Bucknell University and the UNC Chapel Hill. Ms. Guinn is a Black cultural curator, University educator, and administrator. Currently, she directs the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture at Duke University, a position she has held since 2005.

Prior to assuming her current position, she worked as the program coordinator at the Institute of African American Research (IAAR) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ms. Guinn is also an award-winning teacher, who has taught at UNC Chapel Hill, Duke University, Durham Technical Community College and the North Carolina Correctional Institute for Women. Her primary intellectual interests include Black arts/culture and history, philanthropy, entrepreneurship, and leadership. When away from work, she is called upon for business consultation, personal coaching and motivational speaking. She enjoys educational outings, as well as honing her design sensibilities and is always in pursuit of interior freedom.

John McCann | Board Member | He/Him

John McCann has more than 25 years experience in helping leaders work more effectively. He has worked with more than 300 of the nation’s leading cultural institutions including the Association of Arts Presenters, Dance/USA, National Alliance for Musical Theatre, Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Chicago Opera Theatre, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the National Symphony Orchestra.

McCann is co-founder and currently a board member of EmcArts, a nonprofit social enterprise for learning and innovation in the arts.

Alisa Johnson | Board Member | She/Her

Dr. Alisa Johnson is the Assistant Dean in Meredith College’s School of Arts and Humanities of English who teaches American and African American literature, introduction to film study, women’s literature, and supernatural and horror fiction. She is very involved in neighborhood and community issues, serving as the Chair of the Southwest Central Durham Quality of Life Project Steering Committee and Durham Neighborhoods United.

Her essays and entries on African American writers have been published in Modern Fiction, The Reference Guides to Modern and Short American Fiction, and The Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing.  She is the coordinator of the Meredith College Documentary Film Festival and a jurist for the Longleaf Film Festival. She is a long-term resident of Burch Avenue, and loves coffee, cats, and Buddhist meditation.

Robin Kirk | Board Member | She/Her

Robin Kirk is the essayist, award winning poet and author of The Bond, the first in a young-adult fantasy trilogy ((Blue Crow Books). More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs and America’s War in Colombia (PublicAffairs) and The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru (University of Massachusetts Press). She coedits the The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke University) and is an editor of Duke University Press’s World Readers series.

Kirk is a Faculty Co-Director of the Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute and is a founding member of the Pauli Murray Project. She is a senior lecturer in Duke's Department of Cultural Anthropology. Kirk co-chaired the City-County Committee on Monuments and Memorials, with fellow Pauli Murray Board member Charmaine McKissick-Melton. She also co-chaired the North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture.

She is a graduate of the University of Chicago and holds an MFA in Children’s and Young Adult literature from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Milan T. Pham | Board Member | She/Her

Milan is a partner of NicholsonPham, PLLC a boutique law firm located in Durham, NC with a practice centered on emerging issues of family formation and dissolution including surrogacy, assisted reproductive technology and adoption. She is an ART and Adoption Fellow with the American Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys (AAAARTA). In addition to managing her firm, she is a member of the National Family Law Advisory Council of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and serves on the boards of The Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice and Equality NC. In service to her profession, she serves as Chair of the Modern Family Committee and Chair of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Committee of the NC Bar Association.

Antonia Randolph | Board Member | She/Her

Antonia Randolph is a Black feminist queer scholar based in the Triangle. A graduate of Spelman College, she first learned about Pauli Murray’s life and work in a class on Black feminist thought. Her community work reflects her Black feminist values. She wrote love letters to Bresha Meadows, a Black girl who was incarcerated for killing her abuser, in support of the #FreeBresha campaign and hosted a quilt making session for The Monument Quilt for survivors of sexual and gendered violence. Locally, she works at UNC as a cultural sociologist and professor in the American Studies department. She’s a member of the Scholars’ Network on Masculinity and the Well-Being of African American Men and a participant in the Women of Color Leadership Project of the National Women’s Studies Association.

Her first book, The Wrong Kind of Different: Challenging the Meaning of Diversity in American Classrooms (Teachers College 2012), examined the hierarchies elementary school teachers constructed among students of color.  She has also published in the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, The Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, The Feminist Wire and Scalawag Magazine. Her current book project, That’s My Heart: Queering Intimacy in Hip-Hop Culture, examines portrayals of Black men’s intimate relationships in hip-hop culture. 

Rosita Stevens-Holsey | Board Member | She/Her

Rosita Stevens-Holsey, known as Ms. Stevens by most, was born in Massachusetts during World War II to Rutherford B. Stevens MD, a military doctor and Rosetta Murray Stevens. Her mother, Rosetta, was the youngest sister of Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray. After leaving New England, Rosita and her family spent her early years in Wyoming and Kansas. Her father had been selected to be the first Black doctor to do his psychiatry residency at the prestigious Menniger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. 

After college, Ms. Stevens taught in the state of New York, followed by a stint as a systems engineer for IBM. After traveling to Europe in 1968, she decided to stay, settling and living in Heidelberg, Germany. She was able to secure a job with the United States Overseas School System where she taught for six years as an officer and negotiator for the teacher’s union (OEA/NEA), and a coordinator for four years on the staff of the Office of the Superintendent of Schools. 

After leaving Atlanta, Ms. Stevens returned to Washington, D.C. where she continued decorating homes and consulting. She utilized her Masters in Counseling and Human Services, spending nearly two decades with a non-profit serving disabled people in the D.C. metro area as a program coordinator, trainer, group home decorator, and director of operations. 

In the past ten years, Ms. Stevens has educated elementary students in the primary grades, mostly in math or science. Ms. Stevens-Holsey served three years as co-chair of the Faculty Advisory Council of her school’s unit of the Prince George's County Education Association (teacher's union). She is also a member of National Organization for Women  (NOW), NAACP, National Women's History Project, the Pauli Murray Chapter, and the Union of Black Episcopalians (UBE).

She continues to consult in Atlanta and brightening and refurbishing homes from NY to the Caribbean. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, NY Times, House 2 Home, and Essence Magazine, to name a few.

Bryce Cracknell | Board Member | He/Him

Bryce Cracknell is a writer, producer, and director from North Carolina based in Los Angeles, CA. As a storyteller, Bryce seeks to elevate narratives, histories, and experiences that are often overlooked, cast aside, or forgotten.

He is in post-production on his directorial debut feature film, a hybrid-documentary on climate justice produced by Effie T. Brown and Gamechanger Films. Bryce is the Founder and Editor in Chief of the Anthem award-winning environmental justice publication, The Margin. He is also a Staff Writer on Season 6 of the CBS series, FBI: MOST WANTED.

Bryce led social impact campaigns for narrative and documentary features and television shows including DESCENDANT, FLEE, JUST MERCY, and WHEN THEY SEE US. He is a Morris K. and Stewart L. Udall Scholar and a graduate of Duke University where he earned a B.A. in Public Policy. Forbes named Bryce as one of 68 climate leaders changing the film and TV industry. He is a member of the 2024 NBC TV Writers Program and is repped by Kronicle Media.

Elon Cook Lee | Board Member | She/Her

Elon lives with her multi-generational family in suburban Maryland, and you can often find her touring through museums and historic places with her two toddler boys.

Rev. Racquel C.N. Gill | Board Member | She/Her

Rev. Racquel C.N. Gill is a native of Winnsboro; SC. She is the daughter of Camilla Gill and the late Stephen Gill. Racquel is a 2012 graduate of Columbia College in Columbia, SC where she holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Education. Racquel received her Masters of Divinity in May of 2015 from Duke Divinity School in Durham, NC. Upon completion of her theological studies, Racquel served on the pastoral staff at the St. Paul Community Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York under the leadership of Pastor David K. Brawley. After her time in Brooklyn, Racquel served as the Associate Chaplain at Presbyterian College in Clinton, SC. Racquel currently serves as the Minister for Intercultural Engagement at Duke University Chapel and lives in Durham with her partner, Rev. Chelsea Brooke Yarborough, PhD.

Trey Walk | Board Member | He/him

Fun stuff: Trey loves reading almost as much as he loves acquiring books. He dances whenever there’s a chance - bonus points if karaoke or Beyonce are involved. He attempts to keep up with pop culture while decreasing screen time… stay tuned y’all. Trey works diligently to keep some of his plants alive.

Chelsea Davis | Board Member | She/Her

Drawn to the expansive nature of experiential design, Chelsea approaches all projects and initiatives seeking purpose and possessing a mind set on understanding. For Chelsea, architecture is about connecting with human natures and creating places for them to exist. Knowing that access to space is a widely contended privilege, she is led in her work by the desire to support systematically repressed people as they seek new relationships with space. Chelsea finds joy in exploring ways to express and protect identity as it has potential to occur naturally, authentically, and unapologetically in our environments. Her creative process is led by curiosity. She believes that understanding contexts and culture reveals opportunities to link to a project’s goals and attitudes to a cooperative essence. Chelsea celebrates the joy found in possibility, which for her, comes through subverting contemporary notions of the aesthetic environment and moving toward a quality of space rooted in experience.

Chelsea received a Bachelor of Science degree in Architectural Engineering from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 2017 and is a 2019 graduate of the Georgia Tech Master of Architecture program. She now resides in Atlanta, GA and works professionally as an architectural designer with Perkins&Will where she has been heavily involved in civic and cultural projects of varied nature.