Toya is a podcaster, writer, speaker, plant mom, tattoo enthusiast and historian. You might know her as the founder of Toya From Harlem.com, the online destination for millennials of color to uncover historical places they pass by every day, learn the history that wasn't in their textbooks, see dope art by people of color, and find cultural events in LA and NYC.
She recently launched That Wasn’t In My Textbook-a bi-weekly podcast that helps us uncover the things we always wished we learned from the boring bulky textbook.
You can call her your Historian Homie, Trap Historian, Historian Hottie or your Griot. Essentially, she’s the Anthony Bourdain of history.
MEET TOYA
Toya From Harlem is a community curator who loves history, Black Art and Culture and cultural conversations. As a native New Yorker, Latoya went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. Go Wes! After, graduating with a BA in African American studies she moved back to NYC, worked a little bit and decided to go back to school. In 2013, she joined National Urban Fellows, where she completed a Masters in Public Administration through Baruch College in 14 months.
While completing her Master's program she lived in Miami, experiencing some Miami heat and then returned to the concrete jungle of New York City in the summer of 2014. From 2014 until 2018, Toya helped run the graduate program at New York University, although she was always more interested in Black history, art and culture and creating content. Since 2014, Toya lived in this state of duality where she worked for the man from 9 to 5 and pursued her passion after work and on the weekends. In her spare time, Toya reads a lot of books by writers of color, is a tattoo enthusiast, Googles history stuff and shops/promotes Black-owned businesses.
She also sketches, does photography, gets a lot of tattoos and works out. She is not that great at sketching or consistently working out, but she finds them therapeutic.After too many cold winters in NYC, numerous train delays and running into too many people from her childhood, Toya has picked up her stuff and moved to LA.On January 7th, 2019, Toya arrived in LA. Stay tuned for her Brown girl adventures in LA-mixed in with the same Black art and culture she is known to provide.