2022 BLM SEACOAST EXCELLENCE AWARDS

BLM Seacoast Excellence Awards February 27, 6pm

Black Lives Matter Seacoast is proud to present our 2nd Annual BLM Seacoast Excellence Awards!

We will be honoring Black, Indigenous and Person of Color community members older than 14 years old from all walks of life; artists, educators, activists, entrepreneurs, inventors, musicians, students, etc., that have made contributions to benefit the Seacoast areas of New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts!

The event will be taking place on February 27th at 6pm. The event has been pre-recorded during the month of February at the Career Technical Center within Somersworth High School in Somersworth, NH. The event will be broadcast on various different public tv stations in the area and our BLM Seacoast Facebook & YouTube Pages!

Facebook Event: here!

Watch Live on our social media Facebook & Youtube Pages and Live on Local Public Television Stations!

Public Portsmouth Media, Covering Portsmouth, Rye, Newington, Greenland on Comcast 92.

 

HOSTS

Saniyah Bolton

Black Lives Matter Seacoast Youth Division Co-director

Tanisha Johnson

Black Lives Matter Seacoast Co-founder and Board Chair

Tanisha Johnson and Saniyah Bolton
 

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Samrawit Silva

Samrawit Silva (she/her), a 2021 BLM Seacoast Excellence Award Winner, is a graduate from Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). She has always been one to speak up, but UNH is where she became heavily involved in social justice, partaking in forming the 8PercentSpeaks movement at the University. It is her passion for justice that brought her to 350NH, where she worked as an Electoral Climate Organizer. From helping organize peaceful protests to volunteering as a peacekeeper in protests in Concord, to speaking to the youth. Her focus for the past year has been raising awareness for the Tigray genocide that continues to be waged on her and her family.

Having lost a handful of people already and not knowing the status of her mother or youngest siblings, Samrawit continues to advocate non-stop. While fighting to end the genocide- Samrawit is doing her best to help those who are still alive including by traveling to Sudan to help the refugees.

 

SPECIAL PERFORMANCES

The LOOP

The LOOP, which stands for “ladies of opportunity and promise”, want their music to represent all one can achieve in life. Boston-based teen artists, Marcia Bibbins and M’Zariah Starr, ages 15 and 16, formed the contemporary urban pop/R&B duo in their teens after connecting through their childhood and school friendship, a passion for music and a collaborative strength to share their vision on life’s perceptions. The duo has embarked on an enthusiastic and committed plan to explore opportunity and promise through their music and aspiring and heartfelt activism. Their music fits across many genres and is a unique blend of pop, R&B, rap and spoken soul, that removes all judgment and creates an open mind on how people envision the world and those in it. They bring their own spin to old and new sounds with their genre-blending style, creating an artful fusion that captures emotion and drives their activism.

 

The Block Collaborative

The Block Collaborative is an artistic community space in Portsmouth, NH., operated by co-owners and siblings, Anthony and Brenda Bounphakhom. The mission is to help express one’s unconditional love in a style of art to help unite and grow the community. The individuals from the Block Collaborative that will be participating in the performance are: Anthony Bounphakhom, Justin Espaillat, Mikayla Martin, Adam Wertheimer, Tea Buble, Jason Beruke, Delaney Inman, Joelle Minisce, Caitlin Peeler and Yoshi Maysonet!

 

FEATURED ARTIST

Duaa Zuhra

Duaa Zahra (she/her) is a first generation Iraqi-American artist. She was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1991 and now lives and works in New Hampshire. She earned her BFA from the School of Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University in Massachusetts. The mystical representation of the human experience is the essence of her visual language. Her experiences as a war refugee displaced by war influence her work and are woven together with her visionary explorations. Duaa expresses her work predominantly with oil and acrylic paint on canvas. She has exhibited her work in various local shows and galleries. See more of her art here.

 

BLM SEACOAST BLACK OWNED BUSINESS AWARD WINNER

Leroy McGhee

Leroy McGhee (he/him) was born and raised in Boston Massachusetts. His parents relocated to Boston from Alabama in the mid 1960’s in search of greater opportunities. After graduating from Jamaica Plain High School in 1987, He went into the Local #12 Plumbers Union. Leroy obtained Journeyman status and worked on several different jobs during the Big Dig. After an unexpected life changing event, Leroy decided to leave the city and head north to New Hampshire for some rest and regrouping. He had been to Portsmouth and the Lakes Region several times with my father as a young man and he really liked the area. Leroy settled in Portsmouth in the Spring of 1996 and met his amazing wife, Theresa.

He relocated to Somersworth and after working a few years in the building trades, Leroy decided to go to Empire Beauty School and obtain my Cosmetology License. He had been going back and forth to Boston for a precision haircut because he was not able to find anyone in this area who had the ability to groom African American hair: hence, Leroy saw a need with a great business opportunity. He graduated from Empire Beauty School in 2002 and began my career as a stylist at the brand-new Dover Supercuts shortly thereafter. My goal was to work there for 5 years and build a clientele that would support my dream of owning and operating my own salon.  Leroy has been blessed with achieving that goal and has owned and operated Leroy’s Styles, LLC at 59 High Street in Somersworth for 15 years. He is the longest running business owner in downtown Somersworth and the first brick and mortar Black business owner in the Tri-City area.

 

BLM SEACOAST EXCELLENCE AWARD WINNERS

Najee Ayman Brown

Najee Ayman Brown (he/him) can be described as nothing else than a young entrepreneur. After starting his media company, Mindlezz Thoughtz, in 2011 he has helped provide numerous resources to aspiring artists. In addition to running his own media and arts company, Najee Brown also produced his own music and has danced on every stage from the Apollo to Carnegie Hall. Most recently, Najee wrote and produced his play The Bus Stop, which sold out six times in New York City, and recently featured at the Seacoast Rep last summer.  He co-wrote and directed the musical Glimmerings Of Hope, which premiered in New York City and toured Michigan in the spring of 2019. He also directed and choreographed the award-winning musical Henry Box Brown A Musical Journey, in Edinburgh Scotland in the summer or 2019.

Brown oversees the “Sol,” series at Seacoast Repertory Theatre, which will focus on presenting Black, Indigenous, and People Of Color (BIPOC) narratives. Stokley and Martin and Nevaeh’s Brother, are his newest plays to premier at Seacoast Repertory Theatre. Most recently Najee founded his own theater company called Theater For The People. Theater For The People is a BIPOC produced, touring theater company based in New England. Through curating thought-provoking plays accompanied by dialogue spaces, he seeks to build community through the pursuit of oneness and diversity.

 

Saniyah Bolton

Saniyah Bolton (she/her) is an ongoing sophomore attending Exeter High School while currently being the co-director of the BLM Seacoast youth division. Known for her strong aspiration within equal rights, she is involved in many initiatives working to increase racial justice and diversity within her community. She has completed many projects and writings in hopes to educate others and will continue her devotion to achieving equity and inclusiveness for all communities. Still continuously being involved in promoting representation for people of color everywhere, she hopes to create long term change, intersection, and education for youth.  

 

Sandra Guzmán

Sandra Guzmán (she/her) is the third daughter of Lydia Gonzalez Santos and Miguel Rodriguez Santiago. Sandra is an Afro Indigenous woman born in Boriken, the Caribbean archipelago known by its colonized name: Puerto Rico. She is an EMMY award-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker and author. She is a producer of The Pieces I am, a critically acclaimed film about the art and life of her literary mentor Toni Morrison. Other documentaries include The Women's List and The Boomer List, for the American Masters portfolio and The Latino List for HBO. The identity film series explores gender, culture, race, sexuality, ethnicity through a series of intimate interview portraits of trailblazing achievers.

Sandra is the author of the non-fiction book, The New Latina’s Bible, a feminist self-help guide for two generations of women. Her work explores identity, land, memory, race, sexuality, spirituality, culture, and gender. She was editor of Latina and Heart & Soul magazines. Her work has appeared on HBO, NBC News, CNN, Audubon, Univision, Telemundo, El Diario-La Prensa, and PBS among other media outlets.

 

Sandi Clark Kaddy

Sandi Clark Kaddy (she/her) resident of NH by way of NY, upstate that is. Second oldest of 10 children, wife,mother of two Kings, step mom and combined grandmother of 5. She holds a B.A. from Elmira College, Elmira NY. Using her degree in theater Sandi has been blessed to work in the area at professional and community theaters. Sandi wanted to see and be a part of a more diverse stage presence, she wanted to see actors/singers and musicians of color represented locally in the theatre scene so in 2004 she began the first  seacoast black female owned  theater Production Company "Jukwaa Mazoa".  #Seacoast Sandi, as some refer to her as, has produced, directed, performed and created many productions for the stage in NH, Maine and Mass.

She is the creator of "Set The House On Fire", a gospel concert celebrating the life of Rev. Dr Martin Luther King. Sandi is happiest when she's busy, a lady that really doesn't know the word no.  Sandi serves as Board President for the  non-profit organization Seacoast African American Cultural Center(SAACC). She is excited by learning,creating, growing as a person,being a role model,advocate, christian and activist. She loves her church North Star Amezion church located in Newington NH where she serves as a missionary,deaconess, choir member and shares black history as often as possible as part of her Sunday duties as church announcements and greeter. Recently retired she needed one more thing to do so she partnered up in November 2021 with a friend (sista's in charge) and opened another female black owned business " 2Clark's Speciality Gifts".  

 

Robert Richard-Snipes 

Robert Richard-Snipes (he/him) originally born in North Carolina, Robert grew up in various places in the world with his mother who was in the Navy. For the majority of his adolescence, he grew up in Norfolk, Virginia.  He came to New Hampshire in 2012 to run track at UNH and soon learned that diversity was not something that this state had much to offer - or so it seemed. He studied Political Science and Women's Studies and began to pursue leadership opportunities within student organizations that focused on diversity and inclusion. This led him to become really passionate about community work and serving those who might be most marginalized. While obtaining a Master's in Community Development he began working at SOS Recovery Community Organization as a Quality Improvement Coordinator.

Being able to bring diversity and representation into a field that has historically left many out of the conversation is something that really gets him out of bed each morning. When he's not working, you can most likely catch him at my local CrossFit gym - complaining more than working out!