J. LeShae is a visionary and visual journalist who explores the embodiment of freedom and divinity within the forbidden, forsaken, and forgotten spaces of society. J. creates artwork, exhibitions, events, and educational programs as tools of study. As an educator, her courses and coaching has impacted 1000s. J. heads two activist education organizations, Ms. J's Classroom, for educators, organizers, and reformers; and Building Opportunities & Opening Minds (BOOM) for children and communities of color. Her works are employed as training resources at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Teach For America. She coaches activist executives and consults with justice-oriented organizations invested in practice-based development.
As an artist, J has exhibited at the African American Museum of Dallas, the Goldmark Cultural Center of Dallas, and the Abrons Arts Center in New York City. Her latest series, Journey to God: Return to the Motherland, is inspired by her pilgrimages to Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso between 2015 and 2019. Selections from the series channel afro-ancestral memory, and are on exhibit at the Lillian Bradshaw Gallery in the J. Erik Jonnson Central Library (Dallas, TX), the Msanii HOUS Gallery (Carrollton, TX), the Pencil on Paper Gallery (Farmers Branch, TX), and the College Town Renaissance Center (Arlington, TX). She also organizes annual cultural events, such as this year’s Daughter of Woman Dallas Renaissance Event, which celebrates the Black Divine Feminine during International Women’s Day Weekend 2020.
J is a carrier of voices committed to a spiritual assignment of radical love. She is a mirror to our divinity and fights for us all to be free.