The WeGoja Foundation Team
Our Team
Our Project Team
Dawn Dawson-House
Executive Director
Dawn Dawson-House is Executive Director of the WeGOJA Foundation, a statewide nonprofit that advocates for African American historic preservation in South Carolina. She oversees daily operations of the Foundation under the Board of Directors’ priorities for transparency and excellence, including grants and projects management. Current major projects include the South Carolina Preservation Toolkit, a one-stop shop of resources to help property owners and leaders meet their preservation goals, and a study of Rosenwald Schools to determine the feasibility of developing a new State Park trail.
Support their efforts by becoming a Member of the Foundation here.
Kate Borchard Schoen
Project Leader, SC Preservation Toolkit
Public Historian
Kate Borchard Schoen is a consulting public historian, oral historian, and creative. Kate works on projects that are guided by a storytelling, community-driven, and collaborative ethical practice. Kate is the Project Director for the South Carolina Preservation Toolkit project through WeGOJA Foundation. She is also the Project Director/Oral Historian for the Taveau Church Oral History Project. Previous work includes co-leading the Union County Community Remembrance Project, and Curator at the SC State Park Service. Kate holds a BA in History and an MA in Public History, where her thesis was on the Women of the Ku Klux Klan.
Timika M. Wilson
LTC (Ret), US Army
Administrator
Timika is a 1997 Clemson graduate. Her parents, Sergeant First Class Retired, Leon and Peggy Wilson, were born in Santuc and Carlisle, SC, respectively. This connection led her to retire in SC as a Lieutenant Colonel after over 20 years in the US Army.
She is the WeGOJA Foundation Administrator coordinating logistics for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to establish the SC Preservation Toolkit that provides communities with the tools they need to record, restore, and coordinate to ensure African American History is preserved.
She also serves as the Upstate Region Ambassador to train communities during the soft launch of the SCPT.
Our Ambassadors
Dr. Cindye
Richburg Cotton
Brookland-Lakeview Empowerment Center
Regional Ambassador
Michael and Latanya Allen
Founders
Tastee Treats
Jannie Harriot
Executive Director Development and Programs
Cecil Williams South Carolina Civil Rights Museum
Tyrie K. Rowell
Artist, Professor
University of South Carolina Lancaster
Isaac McKissick
(In Memoriam)
Community Leader
Courtney Young
CEO
Foresight Communications
Our Fellows
WeGOJA Summer Fellows joined the SC Preservation Toolkit project team from May-June of 2024 to assist us in gathering information for each of the Tools we provide in the toolkit. We are grateful for their expertise and work.
Elizabeth Laney
Summer Fellow
Elizabeth Laney is a professional historian, genealogist and public speaker specializing in African American and Reconstruction History in South Carolina. She has interpreted history at the Colleton Museum, Drayton Hall Plantation, Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site and Redcliffe Plantation State Historic Site. Laney holds Master’s Degrees in History and Museum Studies.
Mashayla Billups
Summer Fellow
Mashayla Billups is an incoming PhD student in History and Presidential Fellow at the University of South Carolina. A Kentucky native, she is returning down south after her undergraduate years in D.C., at Howard University, where she received her B.A. in Community Development.
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