Shakira Refos

Shakira Refos is the Director of Education and Community Outreach for the Sarasota Film Festival and the Marketing Director for Her Tampa. During the seventeen years she has spent living in Sarasota, she has been an agent of change as the creator and emcee of Ringling Underground and as one of the heads of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Chapter in Sarasota-Manatee. In her oral history, Refos reflects on her experiences with identity, diversity and Newtown.

Student Interviewer: Giulia Heyward

Giulia Heyward is a thesis student at the New College of Florida where she is pursuing an area of concentration in Publication Studies. She is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Catalyst, the New College student-run newspaper, and one of the editors of Aeolus, the New College undergraduate research journal. Her work has been published in Nimbus, Columbus Monthly and Unravel, the online sister publication of the Sarasota Herald Tribune.