•  
    Nichelle Hayes

    Nichelle M. Hayes
    President

    Nichelle M. Hayes, MPA, MLS, is the President of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association BCALA (2022-2024). She works as an Information Professional with a focus on the African Diaspora, Community Engagement and Inclusion. As an active member of ALA she serves on the “2023 ALA Nominating Committee” & “Working Group to Condemn White Supremacy and Fascism as Antithetical to Library Work” 2022 – 2023. Hayes was recently honored as a 2023 Culture Carrier Award Honoree and 2022 National Coalition of 100 Black Women – Breakthrough Women Award. Co-editor of The Black Librarian in America: Reflections, Resistance, and Reawakening (2022). She is a genealogist with a focus on African Ancestry and keeping families connected, as documented in her blog “The Ties that Bind.” Hayes is a graduate of the former IU School of Library & Information Science (SLIS) with her Masters in Library Science, (now Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indianapolis).
  •  
    Jason Alston

    Jason Alston
    Vice-President

    My name is Jason Alston, and I grew up partially in Soul City, North Carolina and partially in Richmond, Virginia. I hold a BA in English from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, an MLS from North Carolina Central University and a PhD in library and information science from the University of South Carolina.
    I have served 3 terms on the executive board, have been on the conference planning team for 3 NCAALs, have served as BCALA News editor for 6 years, have served on the social media team and now on the strategic planning committee.
    Actively involved with:
    • Missouri Library Association diversity task force
    • Assisting with the creation of a library at KC Girls Preparatory Academy, which primarily serves Black and Latina girls at the middle school level.
    • BCALA strategic planning committee
    • American Libraries advisory board chair
  •  
    Shauntee Burns-Simpson

    Shauntee Burns-Simpson
    Immediate Past President

    Shauntee Burns-Simpson, Associate Director for the Center of Educators and Schools at The New York Public Library. An ambassador for libraries and librarianship. Mrs. Simpson enjoys connecting people to the public library and its resources. As a Youth Librarian, she works closely with at risk teens and fosters a love of reading and learning with her innovative programming. In addition to her work with a host of professional organizations, she Chaired the American Library Association Office of Diversity, Literacy, & Outreach Services (ODLOS) Committee on Diversity.
  • Michele Fenton

    Michele Fenton
    Secretary

    Michele Fenton is a catalog librarian at the Indiana State Library in Indianapolis, Indiana. She received her MLIS from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Michele is a member of the Association for the Study of African American Life & History (ASALH), the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS), the ALA International Relations Round Table (IRRT); and was a 2016 IFLA IMLS Fellow. Michele’s interests include African American history, African American genealogy, international librarianship, and cataloging.
  • Wanda K. Brown

    Wanda K. Brown
    Treasurer

    Wanda Kay Brown is the director of library services at the C. G. O’Kelly Library at Winston-Salem State University. (WSSU) Prior to her appointment, she served as the Associate Dean of Wake Forest University’s Z. Smith Reynolds Library. Brown has spent some 40 years in the profession. Along the way she has focused on being “professionally active” in state and national library organizations. In June of 2019 she assumed the role of President for the American Library Association (ALA). As ALA president, Brown was the chief elected officer for the largest library association in the world. Brown has held numerous positions with the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) including service as treasurer (2016-2018) and service as president (2006-08), treasurer (1992-96) and two terms as an Executive Board member (2001-03, 2014-16). She was the 2011-13 president of the North Carolina Library Association and has held various other positions with NCLA, including treasurer (1991-98) and the 2005-09 chair of the Finance Committee. An ALA member for 30+ years, Brown is an active member of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA). She has held multiple leadership positions within each division. She is the 2015 recipient of the DEMCO/ALA Black Caucus Award for Excellence, the 2013 BCALA Leadership Award, and the 2012 BCALA Distinguished Service Award. In 2009, she received University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) Kovacs Award for Outstanding Alumni Achievement, and in 2013, UNCG awarded Brown with the School of Education Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award. Brown holds a BA in English, with a minor in psychology from Winston-Salem State University, and an MLS from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

     

  • Taylor Brooks

    Taylor Brooks
    Assisted Secretary

    We are using these temporary contents on the website.

     

Our Valuable Team Members

  • Brenda Johnson-Perkins

    Brenda Johnson-Perkins
    Board Member, 2022-2024

    Brenda Johnson-Perkins serves as a librarian and Children and Family Engagement Coordinator at Baltimore County Public Library. She has a passion for community outreach and promoting equitable services to underserved groups. She received an MA degree in Black Comparative Literature from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County in 1996 and a MLIS from the University of Maryland-College Park in 2019. She is a 2015 Spectrum Scholar and a recent graduate of the Maryland Leadership Institute.
  • Rudolph Clay

    Rudolph Clay
    Board Member, 2022-2024

    Rudolph Clay (MLS, MA in Human Resources) has been a member of BCALA for over twenty years, working primarily with membership and coordinating the NCAAL exhibits. He is a founding member of the St. Louis Regional Librarians BCALA Affiliate. At Washington University in St. Louis, he serves as Head of Library Diversity Programs and Policy and manages a summer internship program which seeks to encourage undergraduate students of color to consider academic librarianship as a career.
  • Taryn Fouche

    Taryn Fouche
    Board Member, 2022-2024

    “In 2016, Ms. Fouché received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Baruch College where she majored in Creative Arts Marketing and minored in Religion and Culture. Since 2016, she has four years of experience at the Queens Public Library where she started as a volunteer Marketing Intern for six months, became part-time as a Government and Community Affairs Assistant and is now a full-time Customer Service Supervisor. Ms. Fouché was the Queens Public Library 2019 recipient of the Excellence in Community Service Award for providing notary public services in the community of Flushing, Queens, New York.
    Ms. Fouché is a recent graduate student from Queens College where she received a Master’s of Library and Science degree with a Certificate in Children’s and Young Adult Services in the Public Library in May 2020. Her goal is to become a children’s librarian in underserved communities of color, to support black communities, and to encourage literacy to all.”
  • Tamela Chambers

    Tamela Chambers
    Board Member, 2022-2024

    I am a library professional with 20 plus years of experience serving all ages in school and public library settings. I am a product of both Chicago Public Schools and Chicago Public Library, and it has been an honor to pay it forward. I am a graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where I received a Bachelor of Science degree in advertising, Master of Science in library information science and school library certification. I also hold a Master of Education in early childhood curriculum and instruction and a certificate of advance study in education technology from National Louis University.

     

  • LaKeshia Darden

    LaKeshia Darden
    Board Member, 2022-2024

    I am currently the associate librarian for reference and instruction for Warren Library at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach Florida. In the fall of 2020, I completed my doctoral degree in educational leadership from Fayetteville State University. My dissertation, Diversity Training Through Story: University Professionals Explore Narratives of the Black Experience by Reading Coretta Scott King Book Awards Titles, explored the effectiveness of narrative theory coupled with using award-winning Black children’s literature as a diversity training tool with white university professionals. I have been a member of BCALA for several years; a member of the Coretta Scott King (CSK) Book Awards Committee for which I served on the jury from 2017-2021; and 2019-2021, I served as the chair. In addition, I am currently serving a two-year term on the American Library Association’s Equity Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Assembly. I have designed, led, and facilitated EDI trainings for colleges and universities, public libraries, and special interest groups. I am the wife of Lt. Col. Kurtis Darden (USAF) and together we have six children. I look forward to serving BCALA in this new role.

     

  • Leslie Etienne

    Leslie Etienne
    Board Member, 2022-2024

    Dr. Leslie Etienne’s previous professional experience was based in youth leadership and development, social services, and K-12 education. He has also worked with the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, TN, and Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide in Atlanta, GA. He is a proud graduate of two historically Black institutions. Philander Smith College, where he earned a BA in Psychology and Clark Atlanta University where he completed a master’s degree in International Affairs & Development. He attained his doctorate in Leadership and Organizational Change from Antioch University. Dr. Etienne currently works at IUPUI as a Clinical Associate Professor of Africana Studies in the School of Liberal Arts, where he is also the Director of the Africana Studies Program and Founding Executive Director of the Center for Africana Studies and Culture. Dr. Etienne’s research interests are based in Black freedom movement histories, frameworks for grassroots leadership and organizing, and the justice-based multigenerational emancipatory education found in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Freedom Schools enacted during the “Freedom Summer” in 1964. In the community, he is Project Director for the IUPUI Center for Africana Studies and Culture/School of Education/Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School site. He also serves as the Vice President of the Joseph Taylor Branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. A former Peace Corps volunteer, he served in Guyana, S. America from 1997-1999 as an urban youth development worker. Dr. Etienne values interaction with students and enjoys teaching and mentoring.

     

  • Laura Johnson

    Laura Johnson
    Board Member, 2022-2024

    Laura Adair Johnson, B.A., M.L.S., C.A.S. Laura is a native of Charlotte, North Carolina. She completed a BA in French and an M.L.S. at UNC-Greensboro. She earned an advanced degree in Educational Media and completed Educational Administration certification at UNC-Charlotte. Laura is also a graduate of the BRIDGES Academic Leadership for Women Program at UNC-Chapel Hill. She is currently working on her doctoral degree in Educational Leadership. Throughout her career, she has been a public librarian, a school media specialist, a coordinator of special programs, and a classroom teacher. Laura retired from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools as a Vice Principal at West Charlotte High School. Since 2012, she has served as the Director of Library Services at Livingstone College where she started her academic career as the Reference Librarian

     

  • Olanike Olaniyi

    Olanike Olaniyi
    Board Member, 2022-2024

    I was born in Nigeria and practiced as librarian before moving to the United States with my family some years ago. I have a bachelor’s degree in library, archival and information studies, a master’s degree in information science from University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and a master’s degree in from Indiana University. I am a Certified Community Health Worker. I currently work with the Indianapolis Public Library in Collection Management & Acquisition but had earlier worked as Children’s Librarian and Digital Projects Librarian. I was the library’s first Diversity Fellow. I am passionate about researching, collaborating, and connecting my communities with their diverse information needs and backgrounds.

     

  • Fannie Mae Cox

    Fannie Mae Cox
    Board Member, 2023-2025

    We are using these temporary contents on the website.

     

  • Gladys Smiley Bell

    Gladys Smiley Bell
    Board Member, 2023-2025

    We are using these temporary contents on the website.

     

  • Tiffeni Fontno

    Tiffeni Fontno
    Board Member, 2023-2025

    We are using these temporary contents on the website.

     

  • Andrea Hayes

    Andrea Hayes
    Board Member, 2023-2025

    We are using these temporary contents on the website.

     

  • Kimberly Hunter

    Kimberly Hunter
    Board Member, 2023-2025

    We are using these temporary contents on the website.

     

  • Jessica Tingling

    Jessica Tingling
    Board Member, 2023-2025

    We are using these temporary contents on the website.

     

  • Michael Torres

    Michael Torres
    Board Member, 2023-2025

     

Click Here to submit matters, concerns and/or suggestions to the BCALA Executive Board.