Want to join us? The Council is open to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color individuals, representatives of their intentional communities, and allies.
BIPOC Council Membership Process
- If interested in joining our network please join here.
- Once you join, Regular Members will be invited to join the BIPOC Council Google Group. Here you can receive email updates from the Council and engage with your questions and offerings.
Council Staff & Board Members
Paola Diaz,
Managing Director
Paola’s lineage comes from Muisca and Pijao territories, and of the campesine culture, which honors reciprocity with the land, growing our foods and medicines in community, and defending our sacred territories. First generation person born in the so-called United States, raised in New York and bi-coastally based in California. As a daughter of immigrants, their calling involves weaving the stories and knowledge of the North and South. Her work involves mobilizing the redistribution of wealth and power in the form of land, money, and resources for land-displaced peoples, facilitating in the land justice movements, as well as space holding for ancestral healing. She’s a queer land listener and land steward, corn, cacao, and cumbia lover, committed to revitalizing cultural, ecological, and spiritual memory of the ancestors.
Zarinah Agnew,
Co-President
Studying, building & supporting experimental commons and autonomous communities. Related endeavors that might be of interest here include – Haight St Commons – a Bay Area collective of around 70 intentional community houses that brings together people from different co-living spaces and helps them cross-pollinate, curate open-source resources, guides and financial models to help others get set up, District Commons – a non-profit geared to support experimental commoning across the globe, and The Second Life Project – building intentional communities centered around the needs and wisdoms of the formerly incarcerated.
Crystal Byrd Farmer,
Co-President
Crystal Byrd Farmer is an organizer and speaker in the intentional communities movement. She serves as Co-Director with the Foundation for Intentional Communities and is on the Editorial Review Board of Communities Magazine published by the Global Ecovillage Network-United States. She also serves as Co-President for the BIPOC Intentional Community Council. In 2020 she published The Token: Common Sense Ideas for Increasing Diversity in Your Organization. Crystal is passionate about encouraging people to change their perspectives on diversity, relationships, and the world.
Dr. Myra Miller
Sister Maria Muhammad
Aleta Toure’
Aleta Toure’ a homeschooling mother, liberation organizer/community strategist and worker-owned cooperative member with Parable of the Sower Intentional Community Cooperative, a co-lead for Just Recovery through the Climate Justice Alliance. Aleta has six documentary films on PBS/WFSB -TV, The first being “Eyes On the Prize II Documentary Film and together their cooperative members will be doing organizer services and products, which will include the film documentary “Reviving the Black Cooperative Movement.”
Council Members
Organizational Members
- Acorn Community
- Alan O’Hashi – Whole Brain Thinker
- Arrowrock Farm: An Urban Sancutuary
- Black Sustainability, Inc.
- Choices Interlinking Alliance
- Collective Power
- Dandelion Medicine Liberation
- Dismantle Collective
- Earthlodge Center For Transformation
- Esopus Agricultural Center
- Grandmothers’ Village Project, Inc.
- Growing And Growth Collective
- Hearers Hermitage
- Indigenous Mothers Community Land Trust
- International Welcome Center
- Liberated Lands
- Liberation Offline
- Mahogany Manifesto
- Pixan Balam
- Portals Of Samadhi
- Quinta Travancinha Foundation
- Sankofa Village Arkansas
- Serenity Solidarity
- Stellar Roots Education
- Sweet Livity LLC
- The Farm School
- The Infinity Nexus
- Twin Oaks Community
- Wildseed Community Farm & Healing Village
- Yashapi
Regular Members
- A Mocorro Powell
- Aeshwa RD
- Arcadian Barrett
- Brandy Brooks
- Crystal Farmer
- Darrian Williams
- Deondra Carter
- Diana Lee
- Edith Lewis
- Ericka Williams Rodriguez
- Fern Tupelo
- Jai Medina
- Jera Oliver
- Kirah Monroe
- Laquinta Jackson
- Larahna Hughes
- Leona Hess
- Lesleyanne Crosby
- Michael Del Rio
- Ming N A
- Myra Tara
- Quanta Cutler
- Ridhi Dcruz
- Rosey Hakim
- Sarah Elisabeth
- Sharifa Tomlinson
- Syreeta Sevé
- Vincent Wu
- Yeamah Brewer
Supporting Members
- Alan O’Hashi
- Bryan Bowen
- Caddis Collaborative
- Copywrite Brown℠
- Courtney Overby
- Yolanda Brown