Pierce Freelon

Pierce is an Emmy-Award winning producer, an arts-activist, a professor of Black Studies and a Millennial politician. In 2017 Pierce ran for Mayor of his hometown, Durham, NC. In Durham, Pierce founded a digital makerspace called Blackspace. He is the co-founder of Beat Making Lab, an Emmy-Award winning PBS web-series, which has taken him from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to making beats with environmentalist Jane Goodall. He is the leader of a jazz and hip-hop band called The Beast. Pierce earned a BA in African and African American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill and an MA in Pan African Studies at Syracuse University. He has taught music, political science, and African American studies at both UNC Chapel Hill and North Carolina Central University. Pierce lives in Durham with his wife and their two children.