Q&A with Michelle Antonina Burdex: Tulsa’s Storyteller and Innovator
By Elizabeth Snell
Meet Michelle Antonina Burdex, a 2024 National Leaders of Color Fellow.
Michelle is a Tulsa, Oklahoma native, and has served a dynamic 28-year tenure as the program coordinator at the Greenwood Cultural Center (GCC). Renowned for her stewardship, she pioneered acclaimed initiatives such as the Young Entrepreneurs’ Summer Program, GCC’s Performing Arts Program, and the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools Summer and After School Program.
A storyteller and tour guide, Michelle has guided thousands of students, educators, and tourists through the vivid tapestry of Greenwood’s history. She advocates for decolonized methods of sharing history that challenges dominant narratives of conquest, colonization, and oppression by highlighting the resistance, resilience, and agency of Greenwood’s Black community. Notably, she led a tour for U.S. President Joe Biden during GCC’s 100-year remembrance of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in 2021. Her gift lies in educating about both the tragic legacy of the massacre and the resilience of Black Wall Street, weaving together narratives that resonate deeply.
Recognized for her leadership, she joined the Oklahoma Arts Council’s Leadership Arts Program and Leadership Tulsa’s Thrive Tulsa program in 2020. Presently, as a Bloomberg Tech Fellow, she’s engaged in Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Digital Accelerator Program, showcasing her commitment to innovative progress in cultural education and advocacy.
We’re thrilled to introduce you to Michelle as part of our Q&A series with our region’s National Leaders of Color Fellows. She joins a total of 48 National Leaders of Color Fellows, chosen this year to represent our region. Alongside the other fellows from diverse communities nationwide, Michelle Burdex will engage in an eight-month online leadership development experience curated by WESTAF in collaboration with the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations.
What projects are you working on these days?
“Gathering Greenwood,” an interactive exhibit that will serve as a genealogy research resource.
What is your earliest memory of being involved with art and creative work?
In 1996, I experienced a summer arts program for children that explored Black history through various forms of art: theater, visual arts, and music.
What are your hopes and visions for your community and our region as a whole?
I hope to see my community connect and emerge as collaborators in exploring, developing, honoring, and celebrating the arts. I hope that our region embraces my community’s innate desire to create art, and have that work respected and supported through cultivation of resources, skills and development.
What keeps you moving forward?
My inability to quit or let go. I am compelled to support local artists and in doing so, expanding access to the arts for my community.
Is there someone that you have admired (mentor, teacher, friend, or artist) that impacted your path in a positive way that you’d like to share?
Tyrone Wilkerson, storyteller, and Eddie Faye Gates, author and historian, both greatly impacted my life.
Who else should we get to know in our region?
I recommend getting to know the work of Eyakem Gulilat, a Tulsa Artist Fellow.
To learn more about the 2023–2024 fellows, visit artslead.org/leaders/2023nationalfellows/.
Click here to read Q&A’s with the additional LoCF fellows.
The National Leaders of Color Fellowship is supported by the six U.S. Regional Arts Organizations:Arts Midwest, Mid-America Arts Alliance, Mid Atlantic Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, South Arts, and program convener WESTAF.
About the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations
The U.S. Regional Arts Organizations strengthen and support arts, culture, and creativity in their individual regions as well as across the nation. They serve the nation’s artists, arts and culture organizations, and creative communities with programs that reflect and celebrate the diversity of the field in which they work. They partner with the National Endowment for the Arts, state arts agencies, individuals, and other public and private funders to develop and deliver programs, services, and products that advance arts and creativity. Learn more at www.usregionalarts.org.