Her Majesty’s Background

Her Royal Majesty Queen Mother Sêmévo 1st Dr. Dòwòti Désir

Born in Port-au Prince, Haiti of Cuban, and Haitian parents, Her Royal Majesty Sêmévo 1st, is the Queen Mother of the African Diaspora, Bénin Republic. In 2022, she was enthroned at the Royal Palace of Agonlin, and adhered to the Haut Conseil des Rois du Bénin/HCRB (High Council of Kings of Benin). Her Majesty serves as HCRB’s Emissary in the Diaspora. The Queen Mother is also a member of the Forum of Sovereigns and Traditional Leaders of Africa (Forum des Souverains et Leaders Traditionnelle d”Afrique). Largely recognized as HRM Queen Mother Dr. Dòwòti Désir, she is the Founder of the, Imperial Corps Agoodjié of the African Diaspora, an educational and leadership program which connects women of the African Diaspora to their sisters in Africa via online classes and a pilgrimage to Bénin Republic. She has been appointed Ambassador to North America of the International Union of Sports, Educational, and Cultural Associations (UASEC) . Her Majesty is the National Secretary in charge of the Diaspora, of the Organisation des Intellectuels Traditionnels du Bénin/ORITRAB). Based in West Africa, in the City of Cotonou, she is also in residence in the State of New York, where she is a faculty member of Dutchess Community College. Her Majesty instructs underserved youth in Poughkeepsie, NY, at Nubian Directions Incorporated. The Queen Mother is also a consultant to, Purchase College, State University of New York Global Strategies and International Programs, Office for Global Education’s recently awarded, Fulbright-Hays Fellowship. She instructed and advised incoming fellows engaged in the curriculum development project planned for Bénin Republic for summer 2023. She recently received a 2024 Black Divas Award for her advocacy of Black maternal healthcare.

The Queen Mother is an inter-faith leader, human rights activist, author, and photographer. As a high priest (Manbo Asogwe of Haïtian Vodou) she founded in 2017, The AfroAtlantic Theologies & Treaties Institute/ATI, and served as the Gwètòdé de Outre-Mer of the National Confederation of Haïtian Vodou Practitioners (KNVA, 2015-2016) namely it’s, Ambassador-at-Large and official representative in the Diaspora of the late Ati Nasyonal, Supreme Servant of Vodou, Max G. Beauvoir. In 2023, she was awarded, The President’s Lifetime Achievement Award on Chieftaincy by the International Clergy Association for her lifelong volunteer service.  The Queen Mother serves on the board of directors of the Center for Drammeh Practice, Inc. and is the Chairperson of the national Unites States-based African dance and environmental activist group, Siren: Protectors of the Rainforest.

In 2014 she became the first female Vodou priest licensed to marry couples in the State of New York. In 2016, she became the first Vodou priest to graduate from the social justice clergy cohort of the Prophetic Leadership School of Faith In New York, a member of PICO National Network. Her Majesty is the first Vodou officiant to be a fellow of the Inter-Faith Center of New York Civic Leadership Academy 2018. Her Doctorate in Ministry was conferred by The New Seminary in interfaith studies in 2020. She is a member of the prestigious Academic Council of the Pan African Heritage World Museum in Ghana, and Chairperson of the Museum Committee of the Academy of African Indigenous Theologies & Arts. In April 2022 she was nominated for an Unsung Heroes Award by the African British Consulting UK.       

The Queen Mother is the Ambassador for North America and a Conseiller of the International Movement for Reparations — MIR: Fédération Mondiale, and serves as the International Advisor of the Abolish Slavery National Network in the United States. The Founder and previous President of the international human rights coalition, the DDPA Watch Group, she continues her work as a cultural and children’s rights activist in Bénin.  She is a contributor to the African Union ECOSOC CSO consultations on the “ African Union Theme of the Year 2021” process. HRM Kpodjito Dr. Désir is also the Past Chairperson of the NGO Committee for the Elimination of Racism, Afrophobia & Colorism at the United Nations, and is a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Coalition of the International Decade for People of African Descent.  The former advisor to, and United Nations Representative of The Drammeh Institute, an NGO with ECOSOC special consultative status at the United Nations, she has since 2001, been an advisor, and delegate to various United Nations international committes and conferences such as the Venezuelan Presidency of the Movement of New or Restored Democracies 2010-2012, the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD, 2001), the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR, 2001), and the follow-up mechanisms related to the Durban Declaration & Programme of Action Plan. A former Advisor and Designated Expert to the United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organization/UNESCO  on projects related to the global African community, she served as a Cultural Enterprise Specialist in Lusaka, Zambia for the International Labour Organization. The Queen Mother was also a guest producer of AfrobeatRadio, WBAI 99.5 FM in the United States of America, and the former Associate Publisher of The AFRIcan Magazine.   With over 30 years experience in the not-for-profit arena as senior management with financial, public programming and curatorial responsibilities, the Queen Mother served as the first Executive Director of the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial Educational and Cultural Center at the historic Audubon Ballroom between 2005-2009. 

A former arts administrator, Her Royal Majesty worked at the following institutions: the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Metropolitan Transit Authority/Arts for Transit, Arts International/IIE, The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. For over 15 years she served as a panelist, policy maker, and Specialist Consultant to the National Monument African Burial Ground in New York City. In 2008, she was awarded the Oni Award by the International Black Women’s Congress for protecting, defending and enhancing the general wellbeing of African descendants everywhere. She continues to be recognized for her courageous leadership in interfaith leadership and advocacy for the elimination of Afrophobia.

A writer and journalist, she has focused her work on the contemporary arts and culture of the African Diaspora; and the religions and sacred arts of the Afro-Atlantic region. She was a lecturer in the Africana studies department at Brooklyn College, CUNY, and instructed middle school students as the cultural arts visiting scholar at the, Denzel Washington Performing & Visual Arts Magnet School. The co-author of Réparations: Une exigence urgente pour l’Humanité; Personal Visions: Photographs Adger W. Cowans; author of, Essays in Human Rights: A Vodou Priest’s Perspective; and books on the monuments, memorials, and historic sites of the transatlantic slave trade that commemorate the UN International Decade for People of African Descent 2015-2024, entitled: Redlining a Holocaust Memorials, and the People of the AfroAtlantic: Wòch kase wòch, and Goud kase goud: Conjuring Memory in Spaces of the AfroAtlantic. Her most recent book, Wanga: Haitian Hoodoo was released in Fall 2022. 

A member of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora, and the New York African Studies Association. Her Majesty lectures extensively on human rights, and spatial justice; the Maafa of captive Africans, Afrophobia and its impact on contemporary culture; sites of memory and civic art; Haitian Vodou, and the spiritual systems of the Afro-Atlantic at a variety of institutions internationally and throughout the United States. These institutions include the United Nations; Harvard University School of Divination; Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University; New York University; the colleges of the City University of New York (CUNY); the Institute for the Advancement of Puerto Rican Studies in Carolina, Puerto Rico; the University of Benin Cavali-Abomey; the National University of Benin, Port Novo; the Shift Summit and Music Festival'; the Museum of the African Diaspora; the Caribbean Cultural Center; the Guggenheim Museum; and the Figge Museum among many others.

She has been the subject of numerous articles and radio programs including: Citoyen Nantes, Der Spielgel, La Nation (Benin) the New York Times, Atlanta Black Star, Black Talk Radio, Sirius Satellite Radio’s “Make It Plain,” and Reuters.  Co-writer of and featured in the 2021 film, Vodou: Theology of Liberation, she appears prominently in the documentaries, Ancestral Voices II: Spirit is Eternal, and Malcolm’s Echo: The Legacy of Malcolm X. The Queen Mother Désir has been a consultant to a number of films and television shows, as an expert of the AfroAtlantic traditions, such as CBS’s “Blue Bloods” and the Discovery Channel, and in the realm of theater, Little Children Dream of God (Jeff Augustin, Roundabout Theater 2015).  Her Majesty, The Queen Mother is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University and has a Masters’ degree from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. She is the mother of music composer/writer/and her official photographer, HRH Prince Martial Davis, Messy Room Productions, Inc.