Meet Steven Cleveland, Filmmaker, College Professor, Father

Giving Kredit

Steven was born into poverty in Birmingham, Alabama. His family eventually settled in the Bay Area, specifically Richmond, CA, which at the time had more murders per capita than anywhere else in the country. From these humble beginnings, Steven graduated from UCLA & USC in Los Angeles, the first of his family to go to college. College transformed Steven’s world-view by opening him up to the many possibilities that are available but when he returned home to his “ghetto”, he noticed a different message of hopelessness.

He wanted to change that message by using film and education. After cutting his teeth in production on music videos for such artists as Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur, and Mandy Moore, he was fortunate enough to executive produce commercials & music videos for the likes of the Old Lahaina Luau Company and Grammy Award Nominee Ledisi. He then began to develop a media-based service learning curriculum aimed at producing high-quality media by pairing professionals with youth. The marriage of cultural exploration via the arts served him well in both of his roles, i.e. filmmaker & educator.

At Cal State University, East Bay, Steven is a Black Studies Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies, a Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) Professor in the Department of History and an African American (AFAM) Faculty Fellow at the Diversity and Inclusion Student Center (DISC). Currently, Steven resides in Los Angeles where he wakes up every day working to infuse Black Humanity into a variety of media projects.