Adaku Utah

Born in Baltimore and raised in Festac, Nigeria, Adaku comes from a lineage of organizers, farmers, and healers, a legacy that shapes everything they do. They believe liberation requires transforming the conditions we face while tending to our beloved communities, creating movements where we can be whole, and practicing interdependence, tenderness, and accountability as we build the world we long for.

Adaku’s work over two decades across gender, reproductive, race, and healing justice movements continues to deepen their practice as a grassroots strategist, abolitionist healer, movement facilitator, somatics practitioner, and ritual artist. They support organizations and movements in building the culture, solidarity, and healing infrastructure needed for crisis, transformation, and the sustainable path toward liberation.

Currently, they serve as Director of Movement Building Programs at the Building Movement Project, supporting both rapid-response work and long-term solidarity initiatives. They co-host the Solidarity Is This podcast with Deepa Iyer, developing frameworks and practices that deepen transformative solidarity and collective care across movements. Adaku was previously Organizing Director at the National Network of Abortion Funds and co-facilitates Harriet’s Apothecary, an all-Black healer collective rooted in abolition and healing justice.

As a senior teacher with BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity) and other national embodied leadership programs, Adaku nurtures the kind of transformative leadership and organizations our movements need, grounded in humility, aligned with our deepest values, connected to each other, and built for the long haul toward liberation.