Dr. Yolande Tomlinson

CO-DIRECTOR & DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION AND APPLIED INTERSECTIONALITY

Dr. Yolande M. S. Tomlinson (Doc/They/She) is a radical queer Black feminist philosopher and organizer, who brings a lifetime of experience, passion and learning to her role as the Co-Director and Director of Education and Applied Intersectionality for the Organization for Human Rights and Democracy (OHRD). She is a native Jamaican, an avid gardener, and a lover of people and all species of flowering plants, including dandelions.

In partnership with members, Yolande supports OHRD in visioning, modeling, and incubating transformative community institutions grounded in human rights, intersectional praxis, and transformative principles to empower members, supporters, and partners in the realization of a better, more just world. Yolande also develops and implements ORHD’s national and international strategy. As a co-founder of OHRD, Yolande’s other responsibilities include collaborating with OHRD's leadership team to manage and support the harmonious and smooth functioning of the organization.

Yolande's organizing in the US South is informed by her experience in the Global South in the Jamaican countryside, where she was raised by her Grandma Rose, who taught her to farm, build community, and practice love that’s tender, expansive, and liberatory. Prior to launching OHRD, Yolande served as the national education coordinator for the US Human Rights Network, where she was instrumental in the leadership development and education of social justice groups in the human rights framework, methods and principles and represented their concerns before various United Nations bodies. Yolande organizes at the intersection of human rights and radical queer Black feminism across multiple fronts of struggle.   

She writes and publishes as an independent scholar on a range of human rights issues. She teaches in community and nationally, and has written essays, curricula, reports, and other guides for advocates on intersectionality and human rights. She has served on the the board of directors for the Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions and as the human rights advisor for the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance.

Yolande holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in American Studies and certificate in Women’s Studies from Emory University. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia (Fulton County), with her two feminists-in-training, Zoë Rose and Gaianna Skye.