GOOD TALK WITH JULIA STEELE ALLEN

Julia Steele Allen is an award-winning multi- disciplinary artist and activist from New York City. DECADE OF FIRE first began as high school curriculum Julia developed for South Bronx youth who lacked access to the history of their community. Julia has developed the film's grassroots engagement campaign and connects it with the work of housing justice organizations nationwide. She worked for ten years as a community organizer in the South Bronx, and has been part of planning large-scale activist convenings such as the first Critical Resistance conference in 1998, the WTO protests in 1999, the first US Social Forum in 2007 and the Week of Action leading up to the Peoples Climate March in 2017. From 2014-2017 she toured her play, "Mariposa & the Saint: From Solitary Confinement, A Play Through Letters" performing for judges, wardens, corrections officials, legislators, as well as students, faith-based communities, and formerly incarcerated people as part of the growing movement to end solitary confinement in this country. Julia is the Co-Chair of the CASA (Community Action for Safe Apartments) Solidarity Board; a Bronx tenants’ rights and housing justice organization, and is a member of the queer, country band My Gay Banjo.