Marline Johnson – The Stories We Tell Youth Program Coordinator for The Voices and Faces Project

An artist, art therapist, spoken-word poet, and activist, Marline Johnson grounds her work in the goal of making the invisible visible, fostering community and an active dialogue on racial and gender inequality.

A youth workshop coordinator for The Voices and Faces Project’s Stories We Tell testimonial writing program for incarcerated girls, Marline also works as a trainer at POSSE, the most renowned college access and youth leadership program in the country. In all of her work, Marline seeks to create change through the power of the creative. “Art allows people to share as much or as little as we want with the world,” she says. “It gives you a voice, and it gives you choice again, because oftentimes (for victims of injustice) your choices are taken from you.” Marline, alongside Anne K. Ream and Nikki Patin, will facilitate “I Am Rural America,” an advocacy poetry writing workshop.