Michelle served as the first executive director of North Carolina’s African American Heritage Commission, which strives to preserve, promote, and protect the state’s African American history, arts, and culture for all people. With roots in North Carolina on both sides of her family, she has familial ties to Historic Stagville, the state’s African American Music Trail, the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum (Palmer Memorial Institute), Black Wall Street, and many of the state’s historically black colleges and universities.

Michelle began working as curator of multicultural initiatives for the Division of State Historic Sites in 2006. In 2008, with a team of colleagues, she helped to create, by general statute, the state’s African American Heritage Commission (AAHC). From 2012 to present she has served as a member of the senior staff of the NC Arts Council, where the AAHC is based. She has had the honor of growing the impact of two cultural heritage trails–The African American Music Trails of Eastern North Carolina and Freedom Roads.

Michelle continues to use her background as a folklorist, public historian, documentary educator, oral historian, and cultural preservationist to connect communities to the rich and transformative power of North Carolina’s African American heritage.