Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Black History Month Celebration

Chris T. Pernell, MD, MPH, FACPM, is a dynamic physician leader and social change agent. In her practice, she focuses on health justice, community-based advocacy, and population-wide health promotion and disease prevention. A celebrated visionary and apostle of public health, Dr. Chris serves as director of the NAACP Center for Health Equity. The center is charged with driving equitable health outcomes and transforming health care systems while valuing the whole person. Before joining the nation’s oldest and most venerable civil rights organization, she launched The Esther Group, a public health consulting and health equity strategy firm. As founder of The Esther Group, she lives the mandate to dare a future where organizations, communities, and systems can innovate for a better world and humanity.

Previously, she served as the first chief strategic integration and health equity officer at University Hospital in Newark, N.J. Dr. Chris oversaw a portfolio that included population health, strategic planning, community affairs, and the human experience. Her office was responsible for leading health equity strategy development and integrating diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism initiatives across all system operations.

Before joining University Hospital, she led the 1199SEIU/League Labor Management Initiatives Workplace and Community Health Program. Working with 1199SEIU leaders and front-line workers at the nation’s largest health care union and executive partners across New York City health care institutions, her efforts centered on workplace health strategies, worker empowerment, health equity, and health system transformation.

Dr. Chris is a charismatic and leading voice in preventive medicine and public health. Singled out both for her business acumen and public health expertise, her list of honors includes: ROI-NJ Top 150 Business Leaders; the Greenleaf Center Hall of Fame Servant-Leader; the New Jersey Public Health Association Dr. Ezra Mundy Hunt Award for distinctive leadership in the field; NJBIZ Best 50 Women in Business Award; ROI-NJ Women in Business Influencer; the American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM) Ronald Davis Special Recognition Award; NJBIZ Public Health Hero Award; and the NAACP NJ State Conference 100 Black People Who Changed the World honoree.

Dr. Chris has spearheaded issues such as criminal justice reform, care for justice-impacted populations, evidence-based wellness programs, civic health, and high-quality education. Known for her community work in the Greater Newark area, she served on the Essex County Civilian Task Force as a medical expert. On Juneteenth 2023, she was tapped to join the New Jersey Reparations Council as a member of its health equity committee. Dr. Chris is a frequent contributor across television, radio, and print media, leveraging her lived experiences and insights as a public health physician and health equity champion. She regularly speaks at professional symposia and social forums, advising community, state, regional, and national leaders on health equity, racial justice, population health, community well-being, and faith-based initiatives.

Dr. Chris graduated cum laude from Princeton University before attending Duke University School of Medicine. She received her Master of Public Health from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and completed the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health General Preventive Medicine Residency. Dr. Chris is a fellow and regent-at-large for ACPM. She holds an appointment as a clinical assistant professor at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Previously, she taught as an adjunct associate professor at the NYU College of Global Public Health. She labors as a faith leader in a groundbreaking assembly, BET HaSHEM YHWH Worldwide Ministries, and travels domestically and overseas, helping to transform lives through love, truth, creativity, and inspiration.

Ephraim Nehemiah is a published writer, educator, actor, comedian, and nationally touring performer. Their work sits comfortably in the Black cultural lineage of griots who are dedicated to using truth to document and critique the world around them.

Nehemiah holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Pan-African studies from Kent State University, where they were awarded the Undergraduate Poetry Prize and Maggie Anderson Scholarship. Nehemiah is also the co-founder and former coach of Kent State’s award-winning collegiate poetry team that competed annually at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational from 2015-2018.

Nehemiah is the recipient of grants from PEN America, Maryland State Arts Council, and the Cleveland Foundation, and received fellowships from the Karamu House Performing Arts Theatre, Baldwin House Urban Writing Residency, and Watering Hole Winter Retreat. Their poems appear in various journals and publications such as Anxy Magazine, Flypaper, Lake Effect Anthology, UHURU Magazine, and Knights Library Magazine, where the poem “Jesus Christ Tries Talking to His Father Again” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Their performances have been featured on TEDx Talks, Button Poetry, AfroPunk, Season 1 of Free Tuition on Snapchat, and various other channels.

They are a 2022 Southern Fried Poetry Slam Champion, 2021 National Poetry Slam Champion, 2020 Baltimore Grand Slam Champion, 2019 Rustbelt Poetry Slam Finalist, and 2018 Individual World Poetry Slam final stage performer. They made their visual artist debut in 2020 at SPACES gallery in Cleveland, with the interactive installation “Samaritan’s Burden” that focused on inner-city poverty and wealth distribution.

Nehemiah is currently based in Baltimore, where they serve as a teaching artist with DewMore Baltimore. Their first full-length poetry book, “The Autobiography of Absence,” was published in 2021 with Twelve Arts Press.

Scott Strother was born in Washington, D.C., and spent most of his youth in Maryland. He studied trumpet at a young age and into high school and college, first at Bowie State University and then earning a Master of Music degree at Towson University, studying under Dave Ballou.

He spent 12 years as a band director in Harford County Public Schools and is currently teaching at Middle River Middle School in Baltimore County. He has been performing in the Washington, D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area for more than 20 years and has played with influential performers such as Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, and Greg Boyer. 

Strother leads The Scott Strother Jazz Combo, plays with the Charles Funn Big Band, and does other freelance performing in the region.

Lady Brion, MFA, is an international spoken-word artist, activist, organizer, and educator who serves as executive director of the Black Arts District, an organization she founded in 2019. In 2024, she was appointed by Gov. Wes Moore as the poet laureate of Maryland, making her the youngest poet laureate in Maryland history and the first spoken-word artist to hold this position.

She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in communication and culture from Howard University and her Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing and publishing design from the University of Baltimore.

She won the National Poetry Slam in 2016 and 2021, the Southern Fried Regional Slam in 2017 and 2019, and the Rustbelt Regional Slam in 2019. In 2021, she became the Women of the World Poetry Slam champion, making her the No. 1-ranked woman slam poet in the world.

A trumpet player and music educator born and raised in East Baltimore, Makai Guest has studied the art of music for more than a decade. He is a versatile musician who doesn’t play only one genre. He has experience in jazz, salsa, classical/orchestral, brass band, New Orleans jazz, indie pop, and even rock and roll. Music has taken him across the country and overseas through his involvement in programs such as the Peabody Preparatory and the Berklee Five-Week Summer Program. He gets his musical influences from prominent figures in jazz like Marquis Hill, Roy Hargrove, Joel Ross, and Giveton Gelin with the way they all create beautiful and melodic melodies within their compositions and improvisations.