Marcelitte Failla, 2012
Marcelitte Failla is a Black and biracial educator, researcher, and scholar of African heritage religions in the United States and throughout the African diaspora. Through a Black feminist lens, her work explores how religions such as Yoruba Ifá, Haitian Vodou, and Hoodoo of the American South are used for collective healing and social justice. Marcelitte is a Ph.D. candidate at Emory University whose dissertation investigates Black witchcraft and how practitioners employ its spiritual technology for manifestation, healing, and protection from anti-Blackness.
As a practitioner of both Ifá and Hoodoo and a self-identified Black witch, Marcelitte often holds ceremonial space in academic and community settings. Marcelitte has articles in the Black Scholar, The Journal of Religion and Culture at Concordia University, and Liturgy. She is also the recipient of the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship for her study of Black witchcraft. Marcelitte currently lives in Atlanta, GA, with her partner and three cats.