Pierce Freelon is an Activist that deconstructs racism – merging the worlds of art and activism by any medium necessary. He is a professor of Black studies; an Emmy-Award winning producer and director; an electrifying Hip-Hop and jazz musician; and a former candidate for Mayor of Durham. Pierce is a captivating speaker and performer, whose presentations about race, politics, technology and culture leave audiences entertained and enlightened.
Pierce has traveled the world building spaces for creative expression and social justice. He founded Blackspace, an Afrofuturism digital maker space in his hometown of Durham and he co-founded Beat Making Lab, an Emmy-award winning PBS web-series, which has taken him from community centers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to making beats with environmentalist Jane Goodall. Pierce is the director of an animated film about the construction of race called The History of White People in America – an official selection of the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival – and is the frontman of the jazz and hip-hop band The Beast.
Freelon earned his BA in African and Afro-American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his MA in Pan African Studies from Syracuse University. He has lectured in over a dozen countries and has been featured in Wall Street Journal, Good Magazine and on NPR.