Solidarity Ride: Convergence, Resurgence, Healing \& Justice - PATOIS 2025

Solidarity Ride: Convergence, Resurgence, Healing \& Justice. (Michael McKenzie, 2024) Environmental racism, social injustice, and the resilience of communities leading the charge for change. Solidarity Ride documents environmental injustice while uplifting narrative justice and ensuring the voices of impacted communities are heard, valued, and amplified.  22 min. Filmmakers present. What You Hear, What You Say - The Practice of Story Circles (Cooperation Gumbo/Maya Pen, 2025) - The process of building resistance and organizing through sharing our stories. Filmmaker present. Cooperation Gumbo is a collaboration between residents, cooperators, and artists to uplift the histories and ongoing presence of Black and Indigenous cooperation in New Orleans. 4 min. This free program will feature a post-screening story circle featuring founder of Rise St James Sharon Lavinge, land steward of Lincoln Beach Sage Michael, climate activist and organizer Gwen Jones, and Solidarity Ride filmmaker Michael McKenzie. This program is moderated by Timeless. BIOS Michael McKenzie is passionate about advancing community perspectives as an educator, writer, documentarian director/producer, speaker, social-entrepreneur, and executive leader. As a licensed urban educator, administrator, and nationally licensed real estate professional, Michael has advanced culturally competent youth, parent, and community engagement strategies. Michael's social entrepreneurial work through his two imprints, Resilient Narrative and Resilient Associates, aims to advance narrative power and community self-determination. Gwen Jones is a climate activist and organizer based in Freeport Texas. Gwen has lived in Freeport all her life, in a historically Black neighborhood known as the East End. Her grandfather a freed slave acquired land there in the 1920s to start the first segregated school, shortly after Freeport was established by a sulfur mining company. Sharon Lavigne is a special education teacher turned environmental justice advocate. In October 2018, she founded RISE St. James, a faith-based, grassroots environmental organization that has successfully stopped the construction of a US$1.25 billion plastics manufacturing plant alongside the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, Louisiana. Sage Michael is a local and established community activist and organizer working to better the quality of life in his hometown of New Orleans. His work is centered on community building with those underrepresented and most impacted and building coalitions to ensure community decision-making and a just transition in the process moving forward. His commitment and leadership are shown through his advocacy to restore and reopen historic Lincoln Beach.