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

Jennifer West is a clinical nutritionist, community herbalist, and urban farmer committed to Black liberation through food, land, and healing justice. As founder of Plant Mama Alchemy and Executive Director of Whitelock Community Farm, she weaves ancestral medicine, environmental stewardship, and radical education into every aspect of her work. Jennifer creates immersive wellness experiences that reconnect Black communities to the land, honor cultural traditions, and challenge systems of disconnection. Her work is rooted in the belief that healing is a form of resistance—and that growing our own food and medicine is a revolutionary act of care, power, and freedom.

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.

Zakiya Harris aka Sh8peshifter is a futurist, educator, and creative strategist whose work fuses spirituality, culture, and social impact in service of Black liberation. Based in Oakland, she co-founded award-winning organizations including Impact Hub Oakland and Hack the Hood, and produced the Bay Area’s first solar-powered hip-hop festival. A priest of IFA in the West African tradition, Zakiya leads BlacSpace Cooperative, supporting Black-led cultural arts institutions. Through her Sh8peshift Society Collective, she nurtures purpose-driven creatives via masterclasses, sound healing, and wellness practices. Author of Sh8peshift Your Life, she is a sought-after coach transforming lives at the intersection of imagination, ancestry, and liberation.

MarTaze Gaines is a Black, genderqueer grower, strategist, and organizer from Baltimore working at the intersection of land, culture, and collective power. Through GROW410, LLC, they lead racial equity trainings, political education, and consulting rooted in Black liberation. As a community organizer with Organizing Black (501(c)(3)), MarTaze supports campaigns that reclaim what has been dispossessed and build what has been denied. Their work in urban agriculture grounds this vision—nurturing self-determination, honoring ancestral memory, and advancing justice for Black communities from the soil up.

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.

Akhi Nu “Your Personal Priestess” is a liberation-centered wellness practitioner, rite of passage doula, and founder of Spiralroot Power Association, a collective advancing Black culture through healing, sovereignty, and sacred commerce. For over 25 years, she’s served as a teacher, priestess, and advocate—supporting intergenerational wellness and economic empowerment rooted in ancestral wisdom. Her work centers the embodied liberation of Afro-Indigenous people through rest, ritual, and radical community care.

Gabrielle Chanel El (Gabby) is a San Francisco native, mother of four, and grandmother of three. A retired educator with over 30 years of service in Public schools, she is the founder of the Long Live Love Foundation Healing Garden. Through poetry, storytelling, and community healing events, she transforms grief into purpose, honoring the lives of her late husband and son lost to police brutality. Now focused on building with a collective effort a West Oakland healing center, she advocates for trauma recovery, wellness, and justice. Her mission is to help others reclaim their voice and power through art, care, and collective restoration.

Ugonna “Ugo” Njoku is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and public health communicator whose work bridges storytelling, ancestral memory, and systemic healing. With over eight years of experience in community health across Southeast Louisiana and Baltimore, he integrates creative expression, science, and history to illuminate pathways toward equity and resilience. Ugo is the founder of The Social Boot Network, a creative collective and production house exploring how art and culture can transform public health.