Collections by Michelle Brown

Emme Zanotti moved from Michigan’s city on the bay, Bay City, to southeast Michigan stepping out and stepping up as a DE&I specialist, community advocate, and political activist.

After reaching out to Stand For Trans as a resource and to connect with others in the Transgender community she went on to serve as the board treasurer for many years.

She more recently became engaged in politics where her efforts helped flip two key congressional seats in Michigan’s 2018 elections. She currently serves as third vice chair of the Michigan Democratic Party’s LGBT&A Caucus. A big leap forward for transgender representation in the heart of progressive politics in Michigan. 

She was recognized for her work by making The Race Relations Task Force of Birmingham’s Diversity Honor Roll and her political efforts and rigor helped flip key congressional seats in Michigan’s 2018 elections, resulting in her being honored by the Human Rights Campaign, as the state of Michigan’s sole awardee for political action at their annual equality convention.

Roland Leggett is smart, strategic, politically savvy, and a nationally recognized movement leader

He’s worked as an organizer with the Obama for America campaign, with the Detroit Branch of the ACLU, Equality Michigan, Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, and former director of mobility initiatives at MoGo Detroit.  He was a regional political director during the Biden campaign and is currently the movement politics director at Michigan United. Roland is also an outspoken LGBT advocate serving on the LGBTQ and Allies Caucus of the Michigan Democratic Party.

Through his consultancy firm "Roland Leggett Strategies" he works at building inclusive communities.

The personal is still political and no one knows it better than this community activist and political strategist. He shares his thoughts on why staying engaged from the local to national levels has never been more important!!!

Redistricting. Midterm elections. What we've learned. What's at stake with Redistricting and the 2022 Midterm election. The personal is still political and no one knows it better.

Tracee McDaniel’s personal motto is “Show up and participate for equality.”  She was the first trans person to deliver the keynote speech at the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday celebration march and rally.

Tracee marched in Washington, DC, and lobbied in support of a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act and increased HIV/AIDS housing.

She published “Transitions-Memoirs of a Transsexual Woman”, which chronicled her unordinary life growing up Trans in the South and then eventually in 1990 escaping to Los Angeles, CA to save her life from a domestically violent intimate partner

relationship. It also details her evolution working in the corporate world by day and then effortlessly transitioning into her performance artist Alter-Ego by night to make ends meet.

She is the Founder and Executive Director of Juxtaposed Center for Transformation which is an advocacy, consulting, and social services referral organization, specifically designed to empower the non-monolithic Trans and Gender Non-Conforming community.

Juxtaposed Center’s vision is to act as a collective body to provide basic, necessary, and fundamental resources to the Trans community. It is also an anchoring organization for Trans Housing Atlanta Program Inc., which provides supportive and emergency housing resources to homeless and marginalized Trans and gender non-conforming people.

Originally from New Jersey Peirrce “Peach” McCoy now calls Delaware home. She is the LGBTQ Chair for the Central Delaware NAACP.  She not only has a seat at the table, but she wrote the “menu” personally writing and delivering to the organization guidelines for the committee. I Am Me is more than the name of her non-profit organization.

For Peirrce “Peach” McCoy "I am me!" has been her life statement expressing her commitment to bringing her full self, unapologetically to everything she does and spreading that gospel to other members of Delaware’s LGBTQIA community.

I Am Me was created to combat the continuous discrimination LGBTQIA people face in their personal lives, workplaces, and other social settings that can have detrimental effects on their psyche affecting their financial, mental and physical well-being.

I Am Me Inc. was formed to offer safe social spaces with programs that uplift and unify the LGBTQ community. Through its Seminars, Workshops, Forums and Events I Am Me builds positive relationships between the LGBTQ+ community and its Allies to educate Delaware and end discrimination.

Bayard Rustin was an African American leader in social justice movements for civil rights, nonviolence, and gay rights.

He worked with on the March on Washington in 1941, to press for an end to racial discrimination in employment. He later organized Freedom Rides, and helped to organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Bayard Rustin was gay and, due to criticism over his sexuality, he usually acted as an influential adviser behind the scenes to civil-rights leaders. 

As a young activist, cutting my teeth in the civil rights and social justice movements, I did not hear about Bayard Rustin. I felt that I needed to suppress my sexuality in order to be effective in the movement. But then through books, involvement with LGBTQ organizations and the movie “Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin” I recognized the importance of bringing my full self to everything I was doing to truly create change.

Along the way, I discovered other “Angelic Troublemakers” equally inspired by Rustin’s life and doing the work - one being Robt Seda Schreiber,

From day one the mission and vision of the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice along with Robt's commitment and passion have been in sync with my core beliefs touching my spirit.

Steph Turner identifies as a trans-spirit individual who is grounded in her own Native American heritage.

After coming out in 1993 as transgender, she learned firsthand about needs when she was falsely accused and incarcerated for a crime she did not commit. No consideration was given for her gender identity and she was placed in an all-male facility.

Since this experience Steph has felt compelled to transcend political and other divisive activities to deeply connect with all sides to resolve the impacted needs.

After earning degrees in Sociology, Anthropology, Counseling and Public Administration she realized these fields exist to find answers our many needs. She went on to found Anankelogy the disciplined study of need.

In her book “You Need This: Introducing Anankelogy, the Study of Need” she explains how our actions, beliefs, and thinking all occur after our factual needs. She plans two follow-up books on the subject “We Need This: Introducing Anankelogy Principles and Wisdom” followed by “We Need You: Introducing Anankelogical Defunctions and refunctions.”

Kim Ford is one of those people who always has something to say that is informative, inspirational, and transformative changes.

She co-founded Kitchen Table Giving Circle. The non-profit provided philanthropic support to Black/African Descent Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer women-led projects and organizations working to improve the lives of Black/African Descent LBTQ women.

After years working in the non-profit sector, she changed directions starting “Mind Body Balance with Kim” providing health and wellness advocacy as well as transformational life coaching,

When last we spoke it was at the beginning of the pandemic, her business was developing, she was offering classes online and taking classes to expand her practice using her fitness journey to assist and motivate others to find body and soul balance. And then the pandemic hit.

Kim believes each of us moves along our own unique journeys and paths filled with dreams and visions of the lives we want to live. This movement and our interactions with others can help us redefine how we live in community with one another,

She shares how the pandemic has been a time to reset and find our own unique journeys and paths filled with dreams and visions of the lives we want to live.

From sheltering in place, reemerging from quarantine isolation to adopting a pandemic pet it’s a new world, a changing normal and Kim Ford is there for it all!!

As we celebrate and thank our veterans for their service this Veterans Day it is so appropriate that we catch up with past guest and US Air Force Veteran Vanessa Sheridan.

So much has happened since we last spoke with our guest Vanessa Sheridan. She has relocated back to her home in Minneapolis after leaving Chicago’s Center on Halstead where she served as the organization’s Director of Gender Equity and Inclusion.

Despite the limitations caused by the pandemic, this respected author and transgender activist continues to provide public outreach and consulting while offering transgender awareness training services nationally.

She is the author of “The Complete Guide to Transgender in the Workplace.” The first full length, hard covered book on this topic ever released by a mainstream publisher. She has twice been a national Lambda Literary award finalist for her other books on the transgender community.

Vanessa was the first transgender member of the board of directors for the stonewall National Museum and archives.

Nina Kennedy is one of those people that the more you know about her, the more you want to know. Our interview about her book “Practicing For Love: A Memoir” opened the door and today we delve deeper.

Nina is intersectionality – a child of the South raised in the shadow of the legendary Fisk Jubilee choir, an African American prodigy in a white world, classically trained in European greats such as Liszt and Rachmaninoff but able to get down in a hip-hop world, a woman in a “man’s” world, a poet, an author, a filmmaker, a talk show host and so much more.

She’s back to share more about her remarkable life. With three more books in the works this will hardly be our last conversation.

Her Lambda Literary award book “Practicing for Love: A memoir” was published in 2020. “Practice What You Preach” the second book in this memoir trilogy will be available soon

As the season changes from summer to fall, and we transition into the year-end season of giving here’s a playlist of interviews curated from past guests of organizations worthy of your consideration for support with a donation or even as a volunteer.

They can all be found on SoundCloud or Blog Talk Radio on the Collections by Michelle Brown station. So, pop in your ear buds, or put on your headphones and listen to the 100+ interviews. You will be inspired by Guests who have come from across the country representing a variety of topics from vegan advocacy, the arts (Musicians/authors/visual artists), disability rights, politics and all points in between.

Between now and year-end besides bringing you more interviews from new and old friends We are going to highlight some of the amazing organizations we’ve gotten to know over the years.