About us
Our community is activated. We are Liberation Offline, a real-time, direct-response, mutual aid collective borne out of a deep commitment to the work of our members and sparked by the extraordinary harm caused by the City Dibs Society Brioxy Black Sovereignty Fellowship (Brioxy Fellowship). Over the past three months, we’ve been engaged in a series of powerful dialogues, collective conversations, communal gatherings and strategy sessions. Deeply committed to the tenets of Black sovereignty and liberation, we’ve gathered outside of the container of the Fellowship to focus on two primary goals: care for our community and stewardship of a pathway to accountability and solutions.
Liberation Offline Members
Meet the founders of the various orgs in Liberation Offline
Crystal L. Forman, MPH, MHA, is a highly skilled educator and the CEO of Holistic Wellness and Health. With her extensive expertise, Crystal provides services including plant-based cooking classes, wellness workshops, mindfulness meditation sessions, coaching and comprehensive garden and farm consultations. She is dedicated to advancing food justice and produce safety. She is a certified Permaculture designer and a Certified Baltimore City Master Gardener. Crystal has also taken the advanced Resilient Land Management Permaculture course and holds a certification in Holistic Foundation Management for farms from the Holistic Management Institute of Health.
Diana Marie Lee (she/they) is a Black liberation strategist with 30+ years driving systemic change through restorative HR, healing circles, and community development. As co-founder of Liberation Offline and Dismantle Collective, Diana mobilizes Black, Indigenous women, gender-expansive, and LGBTQIA+ community leaders facing displacement in Oakland's housing and employment crisis. Diana is co-leading a $1.5M West Oakland project to create mixed-use community-controlled affordable housing and creative working space for low-income entrepreneurs, organizers, and artists. As VP at National Community Development Institute and founder of Sweet Livity, Diana designed capacity-building projects supporting 400+ organizations and 2,000 leaders across 45 states building collective power and better community health.
Hager Seven Asefaha is a cultural strategist and spatial futurist born in the historic Axum region of East Africa and raised on Ohlone territory, now known as Oakland, CA. Rooted in both Axumite heritage and Oakland’s legacy of Black liberation, Seven’s work fuses spatial development, art activism, and cultural regeneration. He is the founder and creative director of Alena Museum, a nonprofit cultivating multidimensional healing and power-building for the African Diaspora. He also co-founded Culture House Collective, a real estate social enterprise reimagining land use through a justice-centered, futurist lens—beginning with its inaugural project in Atlanta, GA.Website : Alenamuseum.com
Tonya Parker, MEd, Ed.S, is a Holistic Healer, Teacher, Author, Speaker, and Coach who guides folx in conscious healing through Reiki, Retreats, Restoration work, and ‘Riting. As founder of Mind Body & Soul Food, she supports her clients to release limiting energies, remember their truth, and reclaim their power. Her offerings—including energy healing, spiritual coaching, mindfulness practices, and sacred storytelling—support individuals and groups in rewriting narratives rooted in oppression. With over three decades of service, Tonya weaves ancestral wisdom with spiritual insight, helping others reconnect with themselves and each other in ways that nourish, liberate, and transform. Her work centers healing as a path to Black liberation.
Empress Lolita Thomas is the founder of WakeUp Now™ and creator of the WakeUp Artist™ movement, a transformative call to reclaim clarity, embody feminine power, and reimagine leadership through the lens of presence. A Master Certified Coach, Master Reiki Practitioner, and trainer in Emotional Intelligence and Mindfulness, she’s spent 20+ years guiding changemakers—from executives to healers—to shift from performance-based leadership into presence-based living. Through coaching, mentoring, and transformational travel, she awakens wisdom and restores sovereignty. Her Feminine Leadership model supports Black liberation by disrupting patriarchal paradigms and empowering individuals to lead with clarity, courage, and truth—rooted in wellness, wholeness, and the sacred power of the inner voice.
Samuel Gonzalez (they/them) activates spaces where personal liberation, collective wellness, and artistic discovery become possible by weaving together photography, writing, sound, movement, and sensory experience to challenge and expand the ways we perceive the world; Samuel’s celebrated gathering in Tulsa, Tarot Tuesdays, exemplifies their ability to convene community around creativity, spiritual inquiry, and shared learning.
