Our TeaM

Justice & Research Collaborator

Maco L. Faniel is a native of Houston, TX. He shows up and gives to the world as an Educator, Scholar, Writer, and Advocate. In each role, he attempts to change the world in the pursuit of justice and to help folk become justice-oriented in their thinking and daily praxis.

EDUCATOR

Maco is currently the Director of Equity, Inclusion, and Justice Education for the Petey Greene Program (PGP)—an educational justice organization that supports the educational goals of currently and formerly incarcerated people through high-quality tutoring provided by trained volunteer tutors. He is responsible for developing and operationalizing the organization’s internal and external DEI and trauma-responsive practices. He leads the PGP’s Justice-Oriented Leadership programming—designed to help volunteers understand educational justice and to become advocates for systemic change. He also serves as a spokesperson for the organization in criminal justice and social justice circles, promoting the PGP’s social justice objectives. Lastly, he leads the HBCU Forward Initiative, designed to elevate and support Black volunteer tutors supporting the educational goals of currently and formerly incarcerated learners. Since 2012, Maco has taught at community colleges, universities, and in prisons through NJ-STEP. He facilitates learning for courses focused on African American History, Black Studies, and Hip-Hop Studies. These institutions include Virginia Union University, Providence College, Piedmont Virginia Community College, Texas Southern University, Hunter College, five prisons in New Jersey through The New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons Consortium (Rutgers University), and Lone Star Community College.

Beginning in the summer of 2016 through 2020, Maco was an instructor for the At The Well Leadership Academy for Young Women and the From the Fire Leadership Academy for Young Men. He taught a two-week critical reading course for high school girls and boys of color in each academy.

SCHOLAR

Maco earned a terminal Master of Arts Degree in History from Rutgers University and he holds an MA in History from Texas Southern University. During his graduate studies, he focused on the meaning-making experiences of Black people dealing with the ascendant policies, perspectives, and practices that created late twentieth-century racial inequities like mass incarceration. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Speech & Communications from Texas A&M University.

WRITER

Maco is the author of Hip Hop in Houston: The Origin and Legacy (2013), the first book that examines the history of Houston’s hip-hop culture. In Hip Hop in Houston, Maco explores the nature of Houston hip-hop to discover how it came about, why it’s notable, and what it reveals about the life experiences of young urban people in Houston during the 1980s. Maco is also a contributor to the book Religion in Hip Hop: Mapping the New Terrain edited by Anthony B. Pinn, Monica R. Miller, and rapper Bernard “Bun B” Freeman. His chapter, “Mapping Space and Place in the Analysis of Hip Hop and Religion: Houston As An Example,” insists that questions about the role of religion in hip hop must also interrogate the intersection of space, place, and time as significant domains of hip hop cultural practices. From there he analyzes Houston’s hip-hop culture to point to what may be religious about it. He is also a contributor to the art book Slowed and Throwed: Records of the City through Mutated Lenses (2021), where he puts Houston rapper Tobe Nwigwe in conversation with the legacy of DJ Screw and the broader history of hip-hop in Houston. His writings have appeared in numerous web and print publications. As a public scholar, Maco is often invited to write, teach, and speak about issues of justice and equity, mental health, and hip hop and popular culture.

He is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. Maco imagines a world where everyone has what they need to live sustainable lives, in this world we won’t have a need for punishment, exclusion, and confinement. When Maco is not thinking, writing, teaching, or helping folks get free, his main job is being the father of two, a toddler, and a college student.