Bridge to Fatlandia Keynote: Wendi O'Neal

program schedule | keynote | performance! | presenter bios

As we work together to create the Fatlandia of our dreams, both at the conference and beyond, how are we re/creating the hierarchies and exclusions that brought us together in the first place? Our collective commitment to ending fat phobia is integrally linked to other social justice issues such as the women's movement, anti-racist and anti-imperialist struggles of people of color at home and around the world, queer and transgender movements, class struggle, disability rights movements and more. The brilliant and inspiring Wendi O'Neal reckons with such community alliances and gaps on a daily basis, doing tremendous work around coalition and social/economic justice; we're thrilled to welcome her as this year's NOLOSE Keynote Speaker.

As a cultural worker, facilitator, and educator, Wendi O'Neal connects social and economic justice groups' mission, vision and values with how everyday work gets done. She uses spiritually grounded practices, art, story circles and song sharing as tools for growing inspiration and sharing methodology for
democratic process.

Born and raised in New Orleans, she has worked in local, regional and national organizations, but her heart's work is rooted in the US South, especially the kind of organizing that happens around kitchen tables in the Deep South and Appalachia.

She is a dancer, "markers & scrap paper" visual artist, freedom-song-singer and teacher. One of her favorite teachers is her father, John O'Neal, co-founder of the Free Southern Theater, a Radical Black Theater project that grew out of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in the 1960’s.

In 1991, she helped found one of the first documented out lesbian and bisexual women's alliances at a Historically Black College, Spelman, in Atlanta, GA – which continues to exist as the group, Afrekete, today. Some groups Wendi has worked with: Amnesty International, Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children, Southerners on New Ground, The Highlander Research and Education Center, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, and Junebug Productions' Free Southern Theater Institute.