Tim'm West
Facilitator
Tim'm T. West is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio and raised in both Little Rock and Taylor, Arkansas. He is an educator, poet, youth advocate, and Hip Hop artist who has, for decades, traveled the nation speaking about issues at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and social justice. A graduate of Duke University (BA), The New School for Social Research (MA), and Stanford University (MA), he is author of several books, Hip-Hop projects, and is widely anthologized. In 2004 Tim’m started the Front Porch: a performance art series that has mobilized hundreds of artists for more than a decade. He has also appeared in multiple documentaries at the intersection of Hip Hop and black masculinity, among them Alex Hinton’s Pick Up the Mic, Byron Hurt’s Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, and Mario Van Peebles’ Bring Your ‘A’ Game. In 2015 Tim’m released his 4th book, pre|dispositions: a poetic memoir that contains, in part, a Chapter about his experiences as an educator. Tim’m served as inaugural faculty at Oakland School for the Arts, impacted educational outcomes as an English teacher and basketball coach at Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School for Public Policy, and more recently as Director of Youth Services at Center on Halsted. In October 2016, Tim’m released his 6th solo Hip-Hop/Soul project, ICONography, incidentally in the same month he was named 2015 LGBT History Month Icon. Tim’m has since 2014 led Teach For America’s national LGBTQ+ Community Initiative, advancing safer and braver classrooms for LGBTQ students preK-12 and their educators. In 2017, wanting to better capture his holistic experiences as a celebrated Renaissance Man, Tim’m migrated the virtual home for his life’s work from to www.braveeducator.com: a broader portal mobilizing his leadership and innovation in educational, creative, and social justice spheres. In 2017 Tim'm moved back to his native Cincinnati where he is on the Board for Wordplay Cincy, sits on the LSDMC for Chase Elementary, and has helped relaunch Cincinnati Black Pride, alongside other various leadership and creative engagements. In October 2018, he will release Prodigal Son: An Anthology, capturing the best of his career as a Hip Hop artist over two decades in addition to a few new tracks.
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Bayard Rustin: The Invisible Activist is a new biography for ages 10 and up. . . To many, the civil rights movement brings to mind protests, marches, boycotts, and freedom rides. They often think of people like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rosa Parks. They seldom think of Bayard Rustin. Raised by his Quaker grandmother to believe in the value of every human being, Bayard made trouble wherever he saw injustice. As a teenager, he was arrested for sitting in the whites only section of a theater. More arrests followed, for protesting against segregation, discrimination, and war. His belief in nonviolent action as a means for social change gave him a guiding vision for the civil rights movement, which he used to mentor the young Martin Luther King, Jr. When A. Philip Randolph needed the best organizer on the planet, he turned to Bayard Rustin to bring 250,000 people to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Illustrated with over sixty photos, this book is the product of a unique collaboration between three authors: Bayard's partner of ten years, a professor of religious studies, and a children's book author. Though he is largely ignored in history books, Bayard's ideas and actions will inspire today's young (and not-so-young) readers to be angelic troublemakers.