Jaiya John

Dr. Jaiya John was orphan-born on Ancient Puebloan lands in the high desert of New Mexico, and is an internationally recognized freedom worker, poet, author, teacher, and speaker. Dr. John is the founder of Soul Water Rising, a global rehumanizing mission to eradicate oppression. The mission has donated thousands of Dr. John’s books in support of social healing, and offers grants to displaced and vulnerable youth.

Dr. John is the author of 21 books, including "Daughter Drink This Water," "We Birth Freedom at Dawn," "Fragrance After Rain," and "Freedom: Medicine Words for your Brave Revolution." Dr. John writes, narrates, and produces the podcast, I Will Read for You: The Voice and Writings of Jaiya John, and is the founder of The Gathering, a global initiative and tour reviving traditional gathering and storytelling practices to fertilize social healing and liberation.

Dr. John is a former professor of social psychology at Howard University and has spoken to over a million people worldwide and audiences as large as several thousand. John holds doctorate and master’s degrees in social psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a focus on intergroup and race relations. As an undergraduate, he attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and lived in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he studied Tibetan Holistic Medicine through independent research with Tibetan doctors and trekked to the base camp of Mt. Everest. His Indigenous soul dreams of frybread, sweetgrass, bamboo in the breeze, and turtle lakes whose poetry is peace.