Hillombo LLC

04/27/2026

Peace y'all, a new post I wrote on how arts research that groups organizations by "large," "medium" and "small" hides how a big part of their budget size is rooted in the class make-up of the board, ways to look into it and how all of this contributes to untruths about meritocracies and who needs technical assistance. Please check it out and give it a share, even a comment, if you feel moved.

Continuing the theme of foundations as sites and expressions of class struggles , class struggles that under r acial-capitalism will ultimately be determined by the settler-capital-class (SCC), in this post I explain why when budget size is used as a principal category to study arts organiza

10/10/2025

Some years ago, for the Omega Dr. Carter G. Woodson program, organized by the Iota Phi Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, I taught a couple of lessons on Assata Shakur as part of a course on Black nationalism. In honor of Sis Assata’s recent passing, light to her spirit, I want to share a couple of these lesson plans that people can use with in schools, out-of-school-time programs, families, or for the youth section of a larger event. The lessons include images that can be seen using the links below. I will post the second lesson next week. This lesson is based on chapter 2 of “Assata: An Autobiography” by Assata Shakur.

https://www.justlainguages.com/blog/youth-lesson-assata-shakurs-early-life-from-chapter-2-of-assata-an-autobiography

09/05/2025

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08/05/2025

A few images from my time facilitating a leadership retreat for the Pittsburgh Human Rights City Alliance a couple of weekends ago aligned with some important moments/thought paradigms: Dr. Jackie Smith placing our personal histories of activism and organizing against a backdrop of larger historical developments, Jaime Martinez talking about ways to connect our local struggles to broader human rights frameworks, and listening to Carl Redwood place human rights in the context of the Black Radical Peace Tradition and People Centered Human Rights as offered by Ajamu Baraka of the Black Alliance for Peace.

06/06/2025

A few photos of recent planning and strategy work with the Twin Cities of Theaters of Color Coalition (TCTOCC). TCTOCC has been working on building solidarity among theaters of color in the Twin Cities for more than a decade recently adding New Arab American Theater Works and Ikidowin Ensemble. As we know, coalitions are no easy work! Much appreciation to TCTOCC for the continued opportunity to work with the coalition.

05/19/2025

Today on the 100th anniversary of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz’s birth, Malcom X, ashe and light to his parents, Louise and Earl Little, organizers of the Universal Negro Improvement Association founded by Marcus Garvey. Mr and Mrs Little organized, spoke about and modeled a Pan Africanist nationalism in the U.N.I.A, the largest Black organization of the 20th century. Malcolm often attended those meetings with his parents, particularly his father. Ultimately Mr. And Mrs Little sacrificed their lives and even sanity to the movement for Black sovereignty and liberation, his father murdered by settler colonial violence and mother in a state mental health facility. Ancestor Malcolm then sacrificed his life for our ultimate liberation as well. Ibaye or respect to them all.

03/18/2025

Enjoyed being a part of this conversation connecting . A big thank you to Vidhya Shanker, PhD , Nayantara Premakumar Carolina De La Rosa Mateo and the May 13tth Group for the invitation, questions and conversation 🙏🏽☺️ please check it out next time you have some podcast time🤓 link below.

03/13/2025

Recent article in magazine “Daughters” that and I wrote “Exciting Developments For Pan-Africanism in the West African Sahel. The overall magazine which reaches more than 2000 people incarcerated in PA and is largely written by people incarcerated as well as edited and along with others does hella lot of work to put this together. Please check it out. Our article is pp 56-57. Shout out to for so many sources that helped to inform the article and its work generally to raise consciousness. Link to the magazine in bio.

03/12/2025

Looking forward to sharing this experience of leading a youth participatory evaluation/research project on the Cleveland Foundation’s Arts Mastery Initiative. The young people had very active voices and the work was to incorporate them and then see how it changed the project, which it did. However, my experience with this kind of approach is that it is very labor intensive and expensive so there may be some barriers. If you are in Cleveland, please do come out. Link to register in bio.

03/06/2025

Here are some guiding questions from that I have used working with organizations to support conversation about whether a program or policy is more abolitionist or more so strengthening prisons and police. The thing is for us to make explicit how planning is political and is always is built on some set of assumptions. So, while these are exploring police and prison abolitionism, a slightly different set of questions could be asked to explore whether a program or other kind of intervention is etc. The most valuable part might be in a group defining what is at the crux of the world it is building or the forces it is fighting as a form of political education. I have even seen the discussion of why have criteria at all be illuminating as to the larger politics involved. Shout out to Critical Resistance for developing this tool. For someone not deeply familiar with abolitionism, it was very helpful.