Ayanna Hudson '89 

Since 1976, National Black History Month has had an endorsed theme as a part of the celebration. For 2024, the theme is "African Americans and the Arts," spanning the many impacts Black Americans have had on visual arts, music, dance, theater, and cultural movements. This month’s spotlight features a small group of Black GDS Alumni who have used their artistic talents and skills to be agents of change to create, uplift, and inspire.

Introducing… Ayanna Hudson '89 

Ayanna is a funder and policymaker for the arts.

“To understand what drew me to a career in the arts is to understand that I almost wasn’t born,” explains Ayanna. “My great-great grandmother, Ella Shepphard Moore, was born on Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage Plantation in Nashville, Tennessee on February 4, 1851. When she was young, her mother took her to the river to drown her because she didn’t want her to grow up enslaved. An old wise woman appeared out of nowhere and said, ‘you can’t drown this child because she is going to grow up to sing before kings and queens one day.’ As a free woman Ella indeed sang before royalty across Europe as the matriarch of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, introducing Negro Spirituals to the world, and raising money for the survival of Fisk University, a historically Black college and university in Nashville. She was a leading voice of her time for social justice and equality for African-Americans and women… Because Ella lived, I knew I had to pursue a life and a career of service to others,” said Ayanna. 

While a student at GDS, Ayanna volunteered for youth organizations and then pursued child psychology in college, but spent a summer studying the impact of multicultural education on African-American males.

“It changed everything. I discovered a passion for how the right educational experience is a driver for social justice,” Ayanna said. She finished her degree in psychology, and after she completed her graduate degree in education, she began working with a Georgia-based education nonprofit that focused on preventing kids from engaging in risky behavior.

Part of her work there involved finding artists to work with students in the alternative schools they supported. She and her new boss, Dawn, traveled around visiting classrooms across Georgia. 

“What I witnessed was life changing—for me and for them: students processing their life experiences and feelings and emotions through short stories and theatrical performances instead of through risky behavior,” said Ayanna.

Later, Ayanna worked at the Fulton County Arts Council in Atlanta, coordinating a national project preventing youth from entering the juvenile justice system through the creation of functional art pieces. This was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Department of Justice/Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

“I knew I made the right choice when I saw the skills that participating students learned by creating art, and the change of the trajectory of their lives,” she said, “Since then, and over the past 25+ years, I have continued to create and support programs in Los Angeles County and nationally at the National Endowment for the Arts that provide opportunities for those facing the most barriers to arts experiences by addressing the root causes and changing the systems that created them.”

Ayanna credits the exposure and grounding in the arts and in social justice that she experienced while a student at GDS for shaping who she is.

“I was afforded the opportunity to participate in dance, music, theater, and visual arts during the school day, which are the opportunities I fight for so all students are able to experience the arts as part of their school curriculum,” Ayanna said, “The nurturing GDS environment allowed me to explore my interests and I have spent the last 25+ years weaving all of these pieces together. As I tell my daughter, Sala Higgins who is a senior at GDS, find your passion, discover your talents, and when you put these two things together, you find your purpose.”