Board of Directors
President and Treasurer
Meredith Loomis Quinlan is a national activist and organizer currently serving as the Economic Justice Campaign Manager for Community Change, a DC-based office of public policy “working to build the power and capacity of low-income people, especially low-income people of color, to change the policies and institutions that impact their lives.”
Secretary
Mentored by trumpeter and Tribe Records co-founder Marcus Belgrave, Marcus Elliot is a saxophonist, composer, improviser, and educator based in Detroit.
First Mate
Bradley Hales is the internationally-recognized proprietor of Peoples Records and founder of the Michigan Audio Heritage Society (MAHS) Museum, archiving and preserving audio culture and the legacy of the region.
Editorial Advisory Board
Dream Hampton
Dream Hampton is an award-inning filmmaker, producer, and writer from Detroit. Her work includes the 2019 Lifetime documentary series Surviving R. Kelly, which she executive produced, and the 2012 An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, which she co-executive produced. She co-wrote Jay-Z’s 2010 memoir, Decoded. In 2019, she was named one of TIME magazine’s Most Influential People. Hampton’s work provides a platform for issues related to racial and gender justice.
Cornelius Harris
Detroit activist and impresario Cornelius Harris is the founder of Alter Ego Management and the label manager of Underground Resistance (UR), the legendary techno collective from Detroit. He has produced events in the city, across the country, and overseas, spotlighting artists from Detroit. With his support, the artists of UR have since 1990 promoted a fiercely independent, anti-corporate ethos that has transformed the music industry.
W. Kim Heron
With three decades of experience in journalism and broadcasting, W. Kim Heron’s career has earned him a place in the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame. In addition to working as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press and as editor-in-chief at Detroit’s alternative weekly newspaper, Metro Times, he was the longtime host of a beloved jazz and international music program on WDET-FM Detroit Public Radio. Heron is the senior communications officer at The Kresge Foundation, where he provides strategic communications support to the foundation's Detroit Program.
Joan Kee
Writer and art historian Joan Kee is based in Detroit. Her books include Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method (University of Minnesota Press, 2014) and Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post Sixties America (University of California Press, 2019). She is currently working on two books; one is an exploration of Asian and Black artistic intersections and another is a short intellectual history of emojis. A contributing editor to Artforum and an editor-at-large for the Brooklyn Rail, her work has appeared in Afterimage, Hyperallergic, e-flux, Frieze, and various exhibition catalogues in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Kee was a Kresge Artist Fellow in 2019-2020.
Tyrone Williams
Former Detroiter Tyrone Williams taught literature and theory at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of several chapbooks and six books of poetry: c.c. (2002), On Spec (2008), The Hero Project of the Century (2009), Adventures of Pi (2011), Howell (2011), and As Iz (2018). A limited-edition art project, Trump l’oeil, was published by Hostile Books in 2017. He and Jeanne Heuving edited the anthology, Inciting Poetics (2019).
President and Treasurer
Meredith Loomis Quinlan is a national activist and organizer currently serving as the Economic Justice Campaign Manager for Community Change, a DC-based office of public policy “working to build the power and capacity of low-income people, especially low-income people of color, to change the policies and institutions that impact their lives.”
Secretary
Mentored by trumpeter and Tribe Records co-founder Marcus Belgrave, Marcus Elliot is a saxophonist, composer, improviser, and educator based in Detroit.
First Mate
Bradley Hales is the internationally-recognized proprietor of Peoples Records and founder of the Michigan Audio Heritage Society (MAHS) Museum, archiving and preserving audio culture and the legacy of the region.
Editorial Advisory Board
Dream Hampton
Dream Hampton is an award-inning filmmaker, producer, and writer from Detroit. Her work includes the 2019 Lifetime documentary series Surviving R. Kelly, which she executive produced, and the 2012 An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, which she co-executive produced. She co-wrote Jay-Z’s 2010 memoir, Decoded. In 2019, she was named one of TIME magazine’s Most Influential People. Hampton’s work provides a platform for issues related to racial and gender justice.
Cornelius Harris
Detroit activist and impresario Cornelius Harris is the founder of Alter Ego Management and the label manager of Underground Resistance (UR), the legendary techno collective from Detroit. He has produced events in the city, across the country, and overseas, spotlighting artists from Detroit. With his support, the artists of UR have since 1990 promoted a fiercely independent, anti-corporate ethos that has transformed the music industry.
W. Kim Heron
With three decades of experience in journalism and broadcasting, W. Kim Heron’s career has earned him a place in the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame. In addition to working as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press and as editor-in-chief at Detroit’s alternative weekly newspaper, Metro Times, he was the longtime host of a beloved jazz and international music program on WDET-FM Detroit Public Radio. Heron is the senior communications officer at The Kresge Foundation, where he provides strategic communications support to the foundation's Detroit Program.
Joan Kee
Writer and art historian Joan Kee is based in Detroit. Her books include Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method (University of Minnesota Press, 2014) and Models of Integrity: Art and Law in Post Sixties America (University of California Press, 2019). She is currently working on two books; one is an exploration of Asian and Black artistic intersections and another is a short intellectual history of emojis. A contributing editor to Artforum and an editor-at-large for the Brooklyn Rail, her work has appeared in Afterimage, Hyperallergic, e-flux, Frieze, and various exhibition catalogues in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Kee was a Kresge Artist Fellow in 2019-2020.
Tyrone Williams
Former Detroiter Tyrone Williams taught literature and theory at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of several chapbooks and six books of poetry: c.c. (2002), On Spec (2008), The Hero Project of the Century (2009), Adventures of Pi (2011), Howell (2011), and As Iz (2018). A limited-edition art project, Trump l’oeil, was published by Hostile Books in 2017. He and Jeanne Heuving edited the anthology, Inciting Poetics (2019).