Our Team.
Image by Theodorah Ndlovu
Melz Owusu - Founder and Director
Melz is a queer, transmasculine and non-binary activist, scholar and spiritualist. They are the Founder of the Free Black University (@freeblackuni) and a PhD researcher at the University of Cambridge. They have organised in a number of spaces such as Black Lives Matter UK, decolonising education and trans visibility. Their work explores decolonisation, the radical Black imagination and building transformative worlds. Melz has explored the topic of decolonisation with hundreds of audiences across the world and has also tackled the topic on the popular TEDx platform. Their passion is research, and they are currently undertaking a PhD exploring visions for collective liberation. Melz always endeavours to take this radical, decolonial, Black feminist analysis forward in all aspects of their life and work.
Taiwo Ogunyinka - Operations Manager
Taiwo Ogunyinka is a writer, researcher and creative events organiser based in Leeds. He is a founder of the Say It With Your Chest art collective (@siwyc), a poetry-led project exploring art as a medium for organising social change. His research explores truth, positionality and power in community building and interpersonal relationships. This work is being designed and delivered through digital curations and participation research in collaboration with a network of racial justice organisers. His interests are making playlists, being a Leo, manga and writing bad poetry but delivering it well.
The Free Black University is an organisation that has grown out of the collective support of thousands of people from all over the world. The Team of the Free Black University does not just include us, but also the community that trusts in our vision, as well as everyone that has donated and offered support, inspiration and advice, and our efforts are empowered by the contributions of ancestors that walked this path before us.
The Free Black University is where it is today because of so many people, and a special mention must be made for the Free Black University Family. This initial team of volunteers, that includes members of the current staff team, offered their time, skills and love to support the project's fundraising efforts, when it first launched in the Summer of 2020. The donations received over that period the foundations we move forward on today, and for that we are eternally grateful.