Pierce Freelon

Pierce is an Emmy-Award winning producer, an arts-activist, a professor of Black Studies and a Millennial politician. In 2017 Pierce ran for Mayor of his hometown, Durham, NC. In Durham, Pierce founded a digital makerspace called Blackspace. He is the co-founder of Beat Making Lab, an Emmy-Award winning PBS web-series, which has taken him from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to making beats with environmentalist Jane Goodall. He is the leader of a jazz and hip-hop band called The Beast. Pierce earned a BA in African and African American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill and an MA in Pan African…