Preservation Maryland is pleased to welcome two new members to our Board of Directors: Marvin-Alonzo Greer and Jaelon T. Moaney.
“We are thrilled to welcome Marvin-Alonzo and Jaelon to our Board of Directors,” said Nicholas Redding, President & CEO of Preservation Maryland. “Both additions bring impressive backgrounds and diverse expertise which will be an incredible asset to the organization as programming continues to grow across the state and we focus on preserving heritage, creating lasting change, and developing new pathways to preserve our state’s history.”
Read more about our two new members of the Board:
Marvin-Alonzo Greer serves as the Lead Historic Interpretation and Community Engagement Officer for Prince George’s County Maryland’s Parks and Planning Commission. His flagship project is the curation and development of the county’s Sankofa Mobile Museum. The museum travels through Prince George’s County blending augmented reality and virtual reality to teach students about history, social justice, and challenging students and families to think about how they can make a meaningful impact on their communities.
A native of Pasadena, California, Marvin-Alonzo grew up in Atlanta, Georgia where he graduated from Morehouse College studying History and African American Studies. He has held leadership and managerial roles at museums and historical institution, including the Atlanta History Center, Colonial Williamsburg and the Missouri Historical Society’s Soldiers Memorial Military Museum in St. Louis.
His community activism and partnership with community organizations to place neighborhoods in historical context led to him being awarded the Emancipation Proclamation Award for Preserving African American History and Culture by the City of Atlanta. Marvin-Alonzo uses his social media profile MAG the Historian to teach Black history and has partnered with PBS, Ancestry.com, and Google for Creators for various social media campaigns. In 2021 Marvin-Alonzo was profiled in People Magazine as a “Black Activists, Artists, Historians and Changemakers You Should Follow on Social Media”.
When he is not working, Marvin-Alonzo is a mentor to living historians and historical interpreters. He co-founded the Sons & Daughters of Ham (civilian) and the Hannibal Guards (military), two living history organizations dedicated to interpreting the lives of Black people in the Civil War. Under his leadership, the Sons & Daughters of Ham were recognized by the National Park Service with the National Capital Region Hartzog Awards for Excellence in Group Volunteering. Marvin-Alonzo’s central belief is to use history as medicine by connecting communities to their past and creating honest dialogues across cultures that will inspire communities to action.
Jaelon T. Moaney is the Deputy Director of the Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College. He is an interdisciplinary visionary, ruralist, historic resource steward, civic change agent, and Eastern Shoreman.
Jaelon’s lineage in the region dates back several generations. His ancestors’ contributions were focal in establishing what is believed to be the only American village founded by formerly enslaved soldiers, Copperville, as well as the earliest free Black community in the nation. Affording him an opportunity to carry these legacies forward, Gov. Wes Moore appointed Jaelon in 2023 as the youngest to serve on the Maryland Commission on African American History & Culture, established in 1969 as the first-ever ethnic commission in America.
A descendant of founding Black families in both Kent and Talbot counties, Jaelon graduated from Easton High School and holds a B.A. with honors from Williams College. An unwavering commitment to producing scholarship centering life on, and along, Chesapeake Bay tributaries earned him the Sentinels of the Republic Prize in Government and Gaius C. Bolin 1889 Prize in Africana Studies. His passion for elevating all-things-Delmarva is visible through his work, which honors the Peninsula’s renowned legacies and landscapes that uplifts centuries of revolutionary pillars, rural ingenuity and Tidewater resilience.
Over the past decade, Jaelon has developed into a national leader in the U.S. preservation movement through his advocacy on Capitol Hill and in state capitols across the nation. His policy expertise has contributed to the designation of the Southern Maryland National Heritage Area encompassing Calvert, Charles, St. Mary’s and southern Prince George’s counties, which President Joe Biden signed into law in January 2023. Other legislative successes include the unanimous confirmation of the Hon. Sara C. Bronin as the first person of color to serve as Chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation; the expansion and redesignation of Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park to four locations beyond the historic site in Kansas; Bronzeville-Black Metropolis National Heritage Area in Chicago, Illinois; Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Mississippi and Illinois; Blackwell School National Historic Site in Texas; and more.
Always mindful of investing in just futures, Jaelon currently supports his alma mater on the Williams-Mystic Alumni Council by advising immersive-learning projects, as an ambassador to prospective students and strategic advisor for institutional leaders. Locally, he’s the co-founder of The Needle’s Eye Academy—a multilingual, multicultural means of unapologetic literary empowerment for the Black & Brown youth of MD’s Eastern Shore. He also serves as an elected member of the Board of Directors for the Talbot County Public Schools Education Foundation, the Maryland Sea Grant College External Advisory Board and the Maryland Humanities Center for the Book One Maryland One Book Selection Committee.