Speakers
Richard Habersham
Phillips Community Association President
Richard Habersham is the president of the Phillips Community Association. A retired truck driver, Habersham has spent over 20 years advocating on behalf of Phillips, the small unincorporated community in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, where he and his family have lived for generations.
"[Habersham's] grandfather was a fisherman, his days shaped around nets and tides. His great-grandfather ran a gristmill, where his days revolved around mules and corn. Habersham doesn’t spend his days by the water or tilling soil. His is a world of maps and meetings. Flip phone in hand, Habersham dials numbers and strategizes to build an expanding network of support to preserve his community." -- from "The Bitter Southerner", Sept. 8, 2022
Click here to read more on Habersham's work in South Carolina and the Phillips community.
Nashonda Hunter
Executive Director, The Charity Foundation
Nashonda Hunter is the Executive Director for The Charity Foundation. As Executive Director, Ms. Hunter leads this progressive organization attempt to improve the educational, economic, and life outcomes for members of the Liberty Hill community. The Transformation initiative strives to make Liberty Hill "a community of choice, not chance" through STEM, Affordable Housing, Workforce Development and Financial Literacy initiatives. Ms. Hunter is leading the charge of transforming Liberty Hill into a model community by establishing new strategic partnerships with key external stakeholders including corporations, education systems and economic engagement organizations. She is an innovative, results-driven leader with expertise in strategy and communications, establishing partnerships, joint ventures, and stakeholder relations.Ms. Hunter serves on the Board of Directors for Origin, SC and the Charleston County Housing Steering Committee.
She is a proud graduate of Livingstone College, where she earned a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology. She currently lives in Charleston, South Carolina with her son.
Bernie Mazyck
Founder/President/CEO, South Carolina Association for Community Economic Development
Since November 1, 1998, Bernie Mazyck has served as the first President and Chief Executive Officer of the South Carolina Association for Community Economic Development. SCACED is the state's trade association and funding intermediary for Community Development Corporations, Community Development Financial Institutions, and grassroots economic development organizations. Through its network of members and partner organizations, SCACED strives to improve the quality of life for poor families and communities by providing innovative and sustainable solutions to low-wealth communities in South Carolina. SCACED achieves this through capacity building of community-based organizations, attracting public and private capital to local community economic development organizations, as well as influencing the public policy process that benefits poor and marginalized people in South Carolina. Since his time with SCACED, Bernie helped guide the growth of the community economic development movement in South Carolina from 4 organizations to over 150.
Under Bernie’s leadership, SCACED and its member organizations developed projects valued at over $150 million, with an economic impact in South Carolina of over $400 million. Through SCACED’s members and partners, over 2,000 families purchased their first home, CED organizations created over 6,000 jobs, and thousands of poor families build wealth in rural and distressed communities in South Carolina. Bernie also served as the chief architect of the passage of the South Carolina Community Economic Development Act. This landmark piece of legislation authorizes the South Carolina General Assembly to provide grants loans and tax credits to certified community economic development organizations in South Carolina. This is one of the first pieces of legislation that provides state support directly to community-based organizations working in poor and rural communities of South Carolina.
Bernie is a graduate of Charleston Southern University with a BS in Biology, and of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia with a Master of Divinity degree, with a concentration in Ministry with the Poor. In 2000, Bernie completed the Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University.
Marcus Amaker
Charleston, South Carolina’s first poet laureate.
Marcus Amaker (he/him) takes daily naps and is a husband, a dad, a son, a musician, an opera librettist, and a Star Wars obsessive. He served as the first Poet Laureate of Charleston, South Carolina, from 2016—22. In 2021, he became an Academy of American Poets fellow. He’s also a prolific performer, the award-winning graphic designer of a roots music journal (No Depression), a musician, an opera librettist, the creator of a poetry festival, a teaching artist, and an advocate for youth poets.
His work has been recognized by The Washington Post, The Kennedy Center, American Poets Magazine, Chicago Opera Theater, The Portland Opera, Button Poetry, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, Edutopia, Town & Country, PBS NewsHour, South Carolina Public Radio, Charleston Magazine, Charleston City Paper, Post and Courier, and more. In 2019, he received a Governor’s Arts award in South Carolina and was named the artist-in-residence of the Gaillard Center, a world-renowned performance and education venue.His poetry was used by the Washington National Opera for its Presidential Inauguration Day Concert in 2021, and has been studied in classrooms around the country.
In addition to more than 35 electronic music albums, Marcus has recorded three albums with Grammy Award-winning drummer and producer Quentin E. Baxter. His poem “The Rain” is on two Grammy-nominated recordings. He also created a publishing company to release poetry books and host events for poets in his community. June 3, 2021, was named “Marcus Amaker Day” by John Tecklenburg, mayor of Charleston, SC.
He lives in North Charleston, SC, with his wife, their daughter, and a cat named after Wu-Tang Clan. He is currently writing an opera with Gillian Rae Perry as part of Chicago Opera Theater's Vanguard Initiative. His tenth book, Hold What Makes You Whole, will be released on April 4, 2023.
John L.S. Simpkins
John is the President of MDC, a Durham-based non-profit focused on advancing equity and economic mobility across the South. Before coming to MDC in 2020, John held various leadership roles in efforts to promote equity, access, and inclusion at the state, national, and international level. Most recently he was Vice President of the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute, where he mobilized the more than 3,000 Fellows around the world to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and its attendant economic effects.
A constitutional scholar and practicing attorney, John served in the Obama Administration as deputy general counsel for the White House Office of Management and Budget and general counsel for the U.S. Agency for International Development. After leaving government service, he joined Prisma Health as an executive and led collaborative, evidence-based efforts to promote health innovation, access, and equity in South Carolina’s largest private-sector employer. While serving in this role, Simpkins facilitated community conversations throughout the Upstate on racial equity in healthcare, housing, and education.
John received his AB in government from Harvard College and a JD and LLM in international and comparative law from Duke University School of Law. He is a Senior Lecturer at Duke Law School and is a member of the Liberty Fellowship, a program in the Aspen Global Leadership Network dedicated to moving South Carolina forward.