Our Team

By the time JoAnne Bland turned 11-years-old, she had already been arrested thirteen documented times for protesting against segregation in Selma, Alabama. Born in Selma on July 19, 1953, she became a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at 8-years-old.

Bland joined approximately 600 other foot soldiers on March 7, 1965, when they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on what would come to be known as “Bloody Sunday.” She would join two subsequent marches and was among 25,000 other people from around the country when the protest reached Montgomery on March 25. Their efforts helped usher in the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Bland is the co-founder and former director of the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma; and founder of Journeys for the Soul, which provides visitors with civil rights tours. Most recently, she co-founded Foot Soldiers Park, an organization and recreational space dedicated to preserving the history of lesser known and often forgotten civil rights activists.

Born in Washington D.C., raised in the south of France, and currently residing in Los Angeles, Manuel is a filmmaker with fifteen years of production experience. Evolving from PA to AD for such filmmakers as Woody Allen, Manuel has also worked as a commercial editor and producer for multiple Fortune500 companies. Today, he creates TV shows and writes feature films. He is a graduate of McGill University in Montreal.