Panel: Ancestral Motherline Mapping

In honor of Women’s History Month, Souljourning for Truth Ministry, Inc. hosts a discussion centered on Black women elders as keepers of spiritual, cultural, and survival knowledge. Through storytelling, poetry, and lived testimony, panelists will map matrilineal inheritances that shape healing, recovery and resistance, offering tangible tools for wellness, repair, and intergenerational continuity. Featuring Dr. Zoe Franklin, Rhodessa Jones, Ida McCray, Sandra “Mama Makeda” Hooper Mayfield, and Rev Dele. Hosted by Wanda Sabir.

Wanda Sabir, founder of Souljourning for Truth Ministry, Inc., is a retired college professor, independent scholar, storyteller and spiritual healer who practices a decolonized 12-step recovery, Insight meditation, ancestral reverence--Maafa San Francisco Bay Area, and African cosmology. She is a journalist (for over 35 years)--print, web, radio-- @wandaspicks is her tagline. She is also a Louisiana native, San Francisco transplant, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She's a published writer, editor, poet, filmmaker, and multi-genre artivist whose assignments come from the unseen realm or heavens. Asé.

Dr. Zoe Franklin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Chicago State University (2002), a Master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley (2005), and a doctorate of Education from Argosy University-Chicago (2013). Dr. Franklin has instructed courses in Black Studies on Educational leadership in the Black Community, Black women in Africa and the Diaspora, pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial African history and culture, and the African American Family. She is co-founder of the African American Studies Alumni Association at Chicago State University. She is a mother of two sons. Her belief is that everyone has a story that is worthy of being given voice.

Ida McCray is a force for healing, accountability, and radical love. A trauma and wellness professor, former California Wellness Fellow, and longtime advocate for returning citizens, Ida brings both lived experience and deep professional insight to her work. Convicted of air piracy in 1986 and sentenced to 20 years, she emerged from the prison system determined to break cycles of violence rooted in a lack of consciousness and foresight for generations following. She founded Families With a Future, a nonprofit focused on the reintegration and empowerment of formerly incarcerated people. A lover of books, fabric, and humanity, Ida sews to restore her own spirit and teaches to restore others’. Her work is a mix of hard truths, spiritual insight, and no-frills wisdom.

Sandra “Mama Makeda” Hooper Mayfield born Berkeley, California, travels between California, Texas and Ghana. She is the founder of Sugar Water, a global artist platform for girls and women, but she is best known for her work with youth as a behavioral and mental health counselor in jails and her over 40 years work in Alcoholics Anonymous. She is a poet, visual artist, journalist, and literacy specialist who fell in love with words at six years old when her teacher read the class a poem. She is the author of Sugar Water, a chapbook, and her work can be found in several anthologies.

Rhodessa Jones is nationally and internationally recognized as a pioneer and leader in utilizing art as a vehicle for social change. Rhodessa's storytelling mastery is central, fundamental and inspirational to the Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women / HIV Circle, which she founded 38 years ago. Born the eighth of a dozen children to migrant worker parents, her most recent accomplishments include the San Francisco Arts Commission's Legacy Artist grant, awarded in 2024, a Legacy Artist Award in 2023-24 from Youth Speaks through the California Arts Council and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2022.

Rev Dele is Presiding Elder at Earth Sanctuary-a spiritual community that practices communion with God and Earth Care. This emerging  congregation welcomes those with a sincere desire to spiritually mature,  commune with the natural world, and teach others to thrive during crises. Among her studies, she holds initiations in the Akan Spiritual United Order, TijaniyaThikker circle, yoga lineage of Kashmir Shaavism. Her mysticism brings to ministry a balance between knowing the kingdom of God within and serving on the prophetic edge of social change. Rev Dele pastored a multifaith meditation community for 10 years in Washington DC; served as an assistant for Rankin Chapel at Howard University. Her M.Div degree from Howard University School of Divinity prepared her for church administration as well as embedding her prayerful presence into the delivery of God's Word.