Who Owns Black Data III: The Fight for Black Futures

Three years. Three cities. One question that keeps getting more urgent: who owns Black data — and who gets to decide? Join us on May 21 when WOBD III lands in New Orleans, hosted by the Amistad Research Center, on its 60th anniversary. This event is free, and everyone is welcome. Scroll down to meet our keynote conversationalists!

March 21, 2026

Who Owns Black Data III: The Fight for Black Futures

Doors open at 5:30 PM

Nunemaker Auditorium (Loyola University)

New Orleans, Louisiana

Join us for a keynote conversation about Black data and Black futures featuring three dynamic thinkers, institution builders, and activists in the fight for Black life, history, and culture. We will close out the conversation with a performances from ICON the Artist, Knockaz Brass Band, and Chief Shaka Zulu of the Golden Feather Hunter Mardi Gras Indian Nation

Andrea Armstrong is the Dr. Norman C. Francis Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and a 2023 MacArthur Fellow. Professor Armstrong joined the faculty in 2010. She is a leading national expert on Pr*son and J*il conditions and is certified by the U.S. Department of Justice as a Pr*son Rape Elimination Act auditor.

Jo Banner is the founder and director of The Descendants Project, a nonprofit she co-founded with her twin sister, Dr. Joy Banner, in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. Holding bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communications, she uses her education to honor the legacy of enslaved people while defending descendant communities.

Gia Hamilton is Executive Director and Chief Curator of the New Orleans African American museum an esteemed applied anthropologist renowned for her pioneering work in investigating the intersections of land, labor, and cultural production. With a unique approach known as Social Magic™ methodology, she delves into the intricate dynamics of institutions and communities, exploring the depths of social connectivity.

Special Guests:

Sha'Condria "Icon" Sibley is a Central Louisiana-born and longtime New Orleans-based storyteller and sage, poet, writer, performing artist, visual artist, teaching artist, singer, songwriter, actress, wellness advocate, and visionary, whose work centers the voices of (Southern) Blk/Indigenous Women/Girls/People through ancestral remembrance and recollection, present position and power, and future hope and healing. Her work spans across page, stage, canvas, music, talk radio, and short film. Raised in the small-town, southern missionary Baptist church tradition with an educational background in biology and public health, her work naturally intersects between spirituality and healing. A proponent of poetry and art as healing and liberation tools, Icon shares her work and workshops inside schools, universities, prisons, juvenile detention centers, at conferences and festivals and has worked for over a decade and counting, creating, organizing, and hosting community-centered, arts-driven events.

Cassie Watson Francillon is producer, artist, activist and harpist based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She explores sonic futurism by way of folk, jazz & experimental electronic themes on harp. A multifaceted performer, she plays both traditional and innovative settings alike for both original and commissioned music. Recent activations she has created, band-lead and produced include “Consortium” collaborative black sonic technology (2022-4), “Lanati” liberation of acoustic sound for well-being in a public environment as nature (2024), and movements for Ron Bechet’s From the Storms of Our Souls (2025).

Knockaz Brass Band The Knockaz Brass Band was formed in early 2014 by a group of young, professionally trained musicians. The Knockaz Brass Band is the leading group in the next generation of New Orleans Traditional Brass Bands. The band specializes in New Orleans Second-Line arrangements, along with traditional jazz pieces and go-go funk music. http://www.knockazbrassband.com/

Chief Shaka Zulu of the GoldenFeather Mardi Gras Indian Nation Shaka Zulu is a master of Black Masking suit design, an art form specific to New Orleans, Louisiana, which originated as part of the Indigenous and African culture in the city. The intricate suit-building of the New Orleans Black Masking carnival tradition usually involves sewing and designing for one full year, and are colorfully displayed during Mardi Gras, St. Joseph’s Night, and Super Sunday in New Orleans. In addition to upholding the Black Masking tradition, Zulu is revered as a drummer and stilt dancer, both part of the city’s West African traditions. Born in New Orleans in 1969, Zulu grew up immersed in African and Caribbean culture by being a part of his father Zohar Israel’s performing arts company, Free Spirit, in New Orleans. He started drumming at an early age and became a master of African and African diasporic percussion instruments, such as the djunjun, djembe, shakare, and congas. Under the masterful tutelage of his father, Zulu, at the age of 15, became a skillful and accomplished second generation stilt dancer. In 1995, Zulu and his wife Naimah formed the performing arts company, Zulu Connection, and toured their company of dancers, stilt dancers, and drummers nationally and internationally. Zulu has also toured internationally with NEA Jazz Master Donald Harrison Jr. as a masking performing artist and percussionist in Harrison’s band Congo Nation.

All events are free and open to the public. Join us!

Hosted by the Amistad Research Center. Sponsored by the Black Beyond Data Ecosystem, the Diaspora Solidarities Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Johns Hopkins University Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Tulane University, and Loyola University of New Orleans.

Art: Soraya Jean-Louis, Constellation #3// Cosmographs of Belonging Series, 2023

Who Owns Black Data III is May 20th to 22nd, and is hosted by the Amistad Research Center as part of its 60th anniversary festivities. The Amistad Research Center is the nation’s oldest, largest, and most comprehensive independent archives specializing in the history of African Americans and other ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities. This is the third iteration of Who Owns Black Data (2024, Baltimore and 2025, Yale University) and we look forward to continuing this journey in 2027 in Puerto Rico. Learn more at wobd.blackbeyonddata.org

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