Yara Allen is a singer, songwriter, poet, and musician, and a native of Rocky Mount, NC.  She is also the Director of Theomusicology and Cultural Arts with Repairers of the Breach (Goldsboro, NC) and Co-Director of Theomusicology and Movement Arts with the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. 

Yara’s love for Jazz, Gospel and Blues helps her create and deliver soulful movement songs that infuses energy in workshops, seminaries, and in actions and events throughout the country and abroad. She served as Visiting Artist at New York's Auburn Seminary from 2015-2017 and, in 2016, they awarded her a “Lives of Commitment” award.

For 22 years, this artist/activist has engaged in community organizing, social justice, community theater, and movement building. In her role as National Theomusicologist with Repairers of the Breach, Yara teaches the theory and practice of creating and implementing music in moral movements. Following in the footsteps of those who paved the way for movement singers, Yara leans into her seemingly innate ability to create and teach spontaneously. She engages audiences of singers and non-singers to create “Justice Jump-in Choirs” (groups of volunteers from the audience who form on-the-spot choirs).

Yara is currently working on her first book, “Open Up Your Mouth: And We Won’t Be Silent Anymore.” She continues to dedicate her life to social justice arts and to network building among artists whose gifts on the arc ensure that it remains bent toward justice.

Sustaining Our Spirits #18 - Yara Allen, singer/songwriter/organizer