Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes

Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes is a mother, daughter, educator, organizer, author, event producer, performance artist, and community servant. Most know her by her many pursuits, but the way this writer knows herself and the world around her, is through her exploration of the word.  Embedded in the cultural soil of New Orleans and watered by the writings of her literary idols, Kalamu ya Salaam, Sonia Sanchez, and Toni Morrison, Asali has grown to bask in the sun of her literary heritage—from the sages who transformed pharaoh to God in Ancient Khemet to the Spy Boys who chant the way clear for Big Chiefs on Carnival Day.  Ms. Ecclesiastes excitedly brings her deep roots in New Orleans’ indigenous culture to her work as the new Executive Director of Efforts of Grace and Ashé Cultural Arts Center.

Prior to joining Ashé, Ms. Ecclesiastes served as Director of Strategic Neighborhood Development for the New Orleans Business Alliance, where she designed equitable development strategies for high impact neighborhoods—empowering resident leaders and making bold commitments to address entrenched disparities.  She became devoted to this mission as the Claiborne Corridor Program Manager for the City of New Orleans’ Mayor’s Office, where she advanced place-based projects and secured funding within six priority areas:  economic opportunity, cultural preservation, affordable housing, transportation choice and access, environmental sustainability, and safe & healthy neighborhoods.

Before her brief life in government, Ms. Ecclesiastes worked as Congo Square Coordinator for N.O. Jazz & Heritage Festival, Artist Relations Director and Empowerment Seminars Author for Essence Music Festival, and Executive Producer of Tremé 200 Festival, N.O. Juneteenth Festival, Tremé/7th Ward Arts & Culture Festival, and Akoben Words-In-Action Festival.   She has taught in New Orleans public schools, universities, and prisons, and continues to utilize her spoken and written word as a platform for societal change through art and social justice for all humanity.  Asali has toured nationally with the critically acclaimed, “Swimming Upstream”, a play she co-wrote with a cohort of extraordinary NOLA women, exploring life in New Orleans following the post-Katrina flood and produced by author of the Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler.

The author of two TED Talks and chosen as one of the 300 most influential citizens for the City’s Tricentennial, Ms. Ecclesiastes is a 2019 Tulane University Mellon Fellow who counts among her honors President Obama’s 2012 Drum Major for Service Award, the New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian Council’s 2013 Queen’s Scribe Award, and Essence Magazine’s 2018 Excellence in Service Award.

Ms. Ecclesiastes is a graduate of McMain Magnet High School and Vanderbilt University, where she earned Bachelors of Science in English Literature and Secondary Education, with minors in Biology and African Diaspora Studies—a program she co-founded at the university with her sisters of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

As she embraces her new role as Executive Director of Efforts of Grace and the Ashé Cultural Arts Center, Asali holds the wisdom of Zimbabwean author Matshona Dhliwayo who proclaims, “To help people takes strength, to inspire people takes wisdom, to rule over them takes virtue, but to elevate them takes love. The real power of a leader is in the number of minds she can reach, hearts she can touch, souls she can move, and lives she can change.”