De’jon Joy is a community organizer and cultural strategist who currently serves as director of Creative Liberation at Empowerment Avenue, which advances narrative change throughout mainstream media. While incarcerated, he co-developed a curriculum on African American identity for Black men at Mount Tamalpais College, grounding his work in political education and community learning as tools for liberation.
Since his release, De’jon has worked at the intersection of art, film, housing justice, and narrative change, including serving as organizing director at the Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco. He also serves on the Student Experience in Higher Education in Prison Advisory Committee for Resilience Education, contributing to the development of an instructor training program that helps educators better understand incarcerated students and create learning environments where they can thrive. As a community fellow in the NEH Co-Lab Curriculum Development Fellowship at Roger Williams University, he partnered with faculty to develop the course Art, Creativity, and Incarceration. He is an SF Scholar at San Francisco State University, where he earned his bachelor’s in communication studies with a minor in sociology and is currently pursuing a master’s in communication studies.
