The Ebony McKinney Arts Leadership Award recognizes arts and culture administrators who address critical issues facing San Francisco’s arts community and works to continue Ebony’s deep commitment to cultivating artistic leadership.
Ebony McKinney dedicated her career to supporting leaders of color and increasing equitable access to the arts in the Bay Area and beyond. During her time with SFAC she had a lasting and deep impact on the cultural equity grants program. She also touched many lives through her work as a Co-Founder of EAP-SF/BA and Arts for a Better Bay Area. Ebony had a positive influence locally and nationally before her unexpected death in July 2017. She will be remembered as a beloved leader and a fierce advocate for the arts by all who knew her.
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Learn more about past awardees below.
Juliana Delgado Lopera is an award-winning Colombian writer, historian, speaker and storyteller based in San Francisco. She's the former executive director of RADAR Productions and has worked in different capacities at the GLBT Historical Society.
Thuy Tran is an artist and experience curator. She cofounded The Rooted Recipes Project to reflect how food influences Asian American and Pacific Islander identity and resistance, was a 2017 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Fellow and a 2016 EAP–SF/BA Fellow. She writes and acts with Granny Cart Gangstas, an Asian American female sketch comedy group. She is Associate Producer of Public Programs at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco and holds a B.A. from Georgetown University.
Beatrice Thomas is an arts equity consultant, coach and multi-disciplinary artist whose regenerative social practice nationally advances the work of queer and trans artists and artists of color. She has served as a Program Officer at SFAC, and is a lead consultant for Independent Arts & Media, foolsFURY Theater, and SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts. She is an inaugural Association of Performing Arts Professionals Leadership Fellow and received her M.F.A. from the University of Texas.