Yerba Buena Center for the Arts has announced its sixth annual YCBA 100 list, honoring a hugely diverse group of artists, activists and leaders and celebrating a nationwide community of innovative and inspirational individuals and organizations.

“In creating the YBCA 100 list, it was important for us to meet the current moment by elevating the provocateurs and innovators who boldly made a difference in the health and well-being of their communities, worked tirelessly in pursuit of racial equity, and used art and activism to heal and bring us together in spirit when we needed it most,” said Deborah Cullinan, YBCA CEO.

This year, for the first time, the public was invited to weigh in and take part in the nomination process.

The honorees are for the most part Bay Area-based, but YCBA also acknowledges nationally recognized luminaries. There are some big names in there, including Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, filmmaker Loira Limbal and musician Rhiannon Giddens.

Locally, we get to honor several greats including artist Lava Thomas who is currently creating a monument dedicated to Maya Angelou that will grace the entrance to the San Francisco Public Library; photographer Hasain Rasheed who documents layers of community programs, Ramon Ramirez (AKA MamaDora) who has worked in prevention and education in the HIV field for over 20 years; Cat Brooks who is a long-time performer and activist, and co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project, and Margo Hall who is an award winning actor and director, and the new Artistic Director of the Lorraine Hansberry Theater of San Francisco. And there’s a team of two young honorees, Lillian Ellis (11) and Kaia Marbin (12) whose project includes 15,000 butterflies representing migrant children in detention, and is intended to raise awareness, and inspire action to end child detention - see Butterfly Effect: Migration is Beautiful Project.

There’s such an incredible wealth of talent, creativity and activism in this list of too many to highlight, but check out the entire list here and prepare to be inspired!

The YBCA 100 honorees will be celebrated on Saturday, April 3, 2021 at the YBCA 100 Summit. Join in for an interactive and virtual event celebrating the honorees and their world-changing, vital work.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Pictured: 2020 YBCA 100 Honoree Ramon Ramirez. Image courtesy of YBCA