Herrin Oum Fontenette is a current Junior in the School of Arts and Sciences and The Douglass Residential College, majoring in history with a concentration in black studies and minoring in public policy on the pre-law track. She is a proud poet and spoken word artist from Jersey City, New Jersey. Her pieces highlight the beauty, pain, and histories of Black femininity, Black American history, and inter-diasporic African culture, centering themes of unity, divinity, rebirth, and resistance against anti-blackness and white supremacy. Starting as a professional performer in her junior year of high school with NYC Spoken Word group Girl Be Heard, Herrin has blossomed as a speaker at Rutgers, having performed at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, the Paul Robeson Cultural Center, welcoming Rutgers Students at the Opening Convocation ceremony and winning first place in the Robeson Week Poetry Competition in 2022. Herrin currently serves as the Dr. Jewel Plummer Cobb STEAM Initiatives Intern in the Office of Student Involvement and Leadership, promoting the legacy of renowned professor, scientist, scholar, and first African American dean of the Douglass Residential College Dr. Jewel Plummer Cobb and serves as a Racial Action Justice Fellow with the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice.
Herrin Fontenette Bio
