Joe Quinones
Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board
Joseph T. Quinones (Obakanla) is the first African-American born into the Yoruba Orisa tradition and his mother, Marjorie Quinones, was the first African-American initiated into the Yoruba tradition in North America.
Joe is descended from a long line of Sango worshipers from the Yoruba town of Ilesa. On May 26, 1979, at the age of 16, Joe was initiated to Aganju in his hometown of Harlem, New York.
Joe is an MBA graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and is presently the Managing Director and CEO of Primrose Development Company in Lagos, Nigeria and Co-founder and Chairman of The Orisa Community Development Corporation.
As an Orisa community organizer, Joe spearheaded the development of the Ile Ase Orisa community and served as its first Executive Director. He has also led trips and humanitarian missions to Brazil, Cuba and Nigeria. While a postgraduate student at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile Ife, out of respect for his community activism in Yoruba Land, the chief priest of the Obatala Shrine gave Joe the title of Chief Orisagbemi of Ile Ife. View Joe’s complete biography.
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Sheriden Booker
Chair, Fundraising Committee
Sheriden Booker was initiated in NYC in 2006 to the Orisha Obba by William Lowman and Penelope Stubbs. For the last 10 years, she has traveled and studied the history of the African Diaspora in Nigeria, Brazil, and Cuba. She holds an MA in African American Studies and an MPhil in Anthropology from Yale University. The recipient of a Ford Foundation Doctoral Fellowship, she is currently completing her PhD at Yale.
Parallel to her studies she has been invited to participate in academic roundtables about the transnationalization of Orisha practices, and has done fundraising and development work for various non-profits. Sheriden is also a Mellon Bank Jazz Scholarship recipient for Vocal
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Karla N. Moore
Co-Chair, Membership Committee
Karla’s mission is to be a catalyst for cultural and social change in her community. She has a strong cultural arts background and over ten years experience using dance, education and culture to heal and empower children and their families.
Continuing her mission to create positive changes, Karla is currently a pre-kindergarten teacher and dance instructor for a well-established communal school, a youth mentor for a highly acclaimed community based organization, an active member on her community boards and new member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.
Karla is also a member of several professional dance companies using the arts to teach African culture.
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Funlayo E. Wood Olatunji
Co-Chair, Membership Committee
Funlayo is a writer, scholar of the African Diaspora and creator of Aselre.com, a web space dedicated to positive portrayal of the Ifa-Orisa tradition.
She holds a BA in African Diaspora Studies, an MA in History – both from the City University of New York – and is currently at Harvard University completing her PhD in African Studies and Religion.
Funlayo is also a peace and non-violence facilitator through Creating a Culture of Peace, a national organization dedicated to community peacemaking, and has worked with organizations such as Campus Progress and Katrina Corps on social change and community restoration. She was initiated a priestess of Obatala and Iyanifa in Isara Remo, Nigeria in 2008 and, under the guidance of Awo Chief Oluwole Ifakunle Adetutu, has since dedicated herself to the practice and scholarship of the Ifa-Orisa tradition.
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Rose Sackey-Milligan
Program Committee Chair and Board Director
Rose Sackey-Milligan, co-director of c-Integral, is an educator and socio-cultural anthropologist with thirteen years of experience in social change philanthropy. She also serves as Program Officer and State Coordinator of the Literature and Medicine Program at Mass Humanities. Engaged in a range of social justice issues for over 30 years, Rose is the former Director of Programs at the Peace Development Fund and Director of the Social Justice Program at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.
Since 1995, she has facilitated numerous workshops in self-analysis, leadership development and building self-esteem for African, Latino, Arab, Cape Verdean and Asian students on university campuses. Rose has earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology from the University of Connecticut, and has studied and practiced the Afro-Cuban Yorùbá-derived Lùkùmí faith since 1992 and received full ordination in 1997.
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Darasia Selby
Chair, Communications Committee and Board Secretary
Darasia Selby is the Board Secretary and Communications Chair of the Orisa Community Development Corporation. She was initiated to Osun in Philadelphia is 2009. She holds a BA in African-American Studies with a concentration in Religion from Temple University and is currently earning a Masters of Liberal Arts, concentrating on African-American Studies and Religion from Temple University. Darasia has volunteered for several non-profit organizations and is a community organizer with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.