How It All Started
2008- 2020
Marissa begins to work in the nonprofit sector and introduces her children to
community organizing, protesting and anti-oppression work.
2012
Marissa creates the Ella Baker Freedom School.
2012- 2015
The Ella Baker Freedom School is gifted a property on the south side of Chicago
which serves as a hub of community education, green spaces, food distribution and community meeting space.
2015
As our students begin to age, The Ella Baker Freedom School evolves into a
virtual format offering more parental resources on starting a Freedom School.
2020
After working with and for nonprofit organizations for over a decade, Marissa and
Javonna has had enough of organizations that are supposedly working in our
communities not being of our communities. Thus, the Brown People Foundation
is officially incorporated as a 501c3 nonprofit organization.
2020-2022
The Brown People Foundation (BPF) begins providing direct services to our
communities via clothing and food distribution, back to school supply give aways,
Know Your Rights trainings and collaboration with other like-minded
organizations and individuals.
2022- 2025
BPF expands to facilitating more community educational outreach including
urban foraging, plant medicine workshops, wellness events.
2025
BPF launches the Green Hub Project to get back to our Freedom School roots by
obtain a permanent space to facilitate our Earth stewardship programming and
skills training and provide the community with a space to network and create.
The BPF Team
Marissa Brown
Javonna A. Hines
Javonna A. Hines
Marissa Brown is a mother, community leader, educator, and food sovereignty advocate dedicated to empowering Black and Indigenous communities. Founder of The Brown People Foundation and Milwaukee’s first Black woman microgreen farmer, she works at the intersection of education, earth stewardship, and birth justice—creating pathways to self-agency, wellness, and social equity.
Javonna A. Hines
Javonna A. Hines
Javonna A. Hines
Jah (they/she) is a Black, queer, non-binary wellness practitioner and Southside Chicago native dedicated to community care and collective liberation. A neurodivergent massage therapist and certified Kundalini yoga instructor, they blend clinical skill with intuitive, trauma-informed care to center the healing of Black, queer, trans, and neurodivergent communities. Through their work, Jah creates sacred, affirming spaces for rest, joy, and embodied transformation.
Out Partners
Honoring the Ancestors & Land
We call upon the courage, wisdom, love and protection of our ancestors in all that we do. We honor the lands that we strive to restore through our earth stewardship. We acknowledge the First Nation Tribes of the Americas who peacefully coexisted with the land before, during and after colonization and genocide.
Brown People Foundation acknowledges this in deed as well and we encourage all to bring photos, plants and keepsakes for our community Altars found at most of our community events (you will take them back with you at the end of the event).
