Free Egunfemi Bangura is an independent historical strategist and social entrepreneur from Richmond, VA. In 2013, she founded Untold RVA and Untold Tours to inspire non-traditional audiences with bold typography, audio enhanced street art, and urban exploration. 

Bangura was selected to join the inaugural cohort at Monument Lab in 2018 and has been credited as the originator of the international Commemorative Justice movement. She is a member of Richmond Memorial Health Foundation’s Health Equity Artists cohort, a bureau chief at the United States Department of Arts and Culture, a founding member of the BLK RVA action team,  a faculty advisor at Initiatives of Change USA and the elected chair of Richmond Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s History and Culture Commission.

In 2018, Bangura established official City of Richmond commemorations entitled Black Freedom Day and GABRIEL WEEK. Last summer she guest lectured, produced, and co-directed Brother General Gabriel, the largest site-based performance ever commissioned by the University of Richmond.  

As a 2019-2020 Soros Equality fellow with Open Society Foundations, Free has focused on creating innovative people-powered strategies to amplify the emerging Commemorative Justice movement as an essential component of the Black creative economy.

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Free recently joined the faculty at Richmond Urban Ministries Institute (RUMI). She quickly reformatted her existing COMMUNIVERSITY platform to move RUMI's program participants through a 90 day intensive featuring online coursework featuring her handpicked roster of independent community based subject matter experts, collectively known as the Field Notes from the Front Line speakers bureau.

Bangura's current interactive street art project is Black Monument Avenue, a three block urban exploration experience  in Richmond's majority Black Highland Park neighborhood. Visitors can safely explore this outdoor museum by driving through and calling a dedicated phone line with unique access codes for hearing songs, poems and messages about each installation. Neighbors, tourists and curious visitors to Black Monument Avenue will be greeted by large format african patterns adorning the streetscape alongside bold, colorful statements affirming the appreciation for ancestral remembrance and reclaimed memory culture.

Free Egunfemi Bangura’s work has appeared on NextCity, BBC, Al Jazeera, PBS, and NPR. Reach out to her with ideas for collabo projects and guest lectures via [email protected].