With our Celebration for Children’s Rights coming up on April 3rd, we’re excited to introduce our Diamonique Whaley Champion of Justice awardee for 2026: Journey Allen, Local Artist and Founder of Spectrum Arts NOLA.
“Journey is a quiet force in New Orleans’ youth justice landscape,” says LCCR Executive Director Kristen Rome. “Her work to engage our most vulnerable young people through art has been transformative and expanded what is possible in our community. She lives her values and stands firm in her commitment to using imagination as a conduit for personal and collective liberation. I’m so grateful to work alongside her as we reimagine youth justice in New Orleans and beyond.”
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Journey relocated to Texas to earn her Fine Arts degree. During her time there, she cultivated her love for community and artistry through the nonprofit Project Row Houses. She took a leadership role in implementing multidisciplinary arts programming in a community-based setting. It was here that she also took two young brothers, Gerrick and Dujuan, under her wing, mothering them as her own.
While Journey’s residence in Houston began as an abrupt response to seeking refuge during a natural disaster, this chapter in her life shaped her into the visual artist, arts educator, and community leader that lives a life dedicated to peace and excellence today.
After eight years in Houston, Journey returned home to New Orleans. Her creative outreach includes youth arts programming, monthly community dinners, and an annual Local Artists Marketplace where young artists can display and sell their wares.
Journey’s heart is still driven towards her overall vision that people will discover the best portion of themselves through their “expression of” and “interaction with” creativity.
“It’s not the level or skill of creation that brings about change,” says Journey. “Rather, it’s the willingness to share the colors and scribbles of one’s imagination, and the engagement with the creativity of another, that ultimately brings about the awe-inspiring change that we each long to witness within our lives and throughout our communities.”
While at the Young Artist Movement, Journey worked closely with kids incarcerated at New Orleans’ Juvenile Justice Intervention Center (JJIC)—including numerous LCCR clients. She lead classes at JJIC that aimed to help kids discover the art of mindfulness and sacred mural making. Through meditation practices along with the exploration of Kehinde Wiley’s Archaeology of Silence, Jean Lacy’s stained glass windows, John Biggers’ African-centered works, the bronze sculptures of Benin, and the jarring new-expressionism works of Jean-Michel Basquiat, they painted JJIC’s chapel/community space with images that sought to interpret the students’ ideas of sacredness.
In 2022, Journey served as the lead artist on the “My Beautiful Dream for New Orleans” mural project, where 12 youth detained at JJIC explored the process of mural making for the first time and contributed to both the designing and painting of the project.
In 2023, Journey supported JJIC youth in designing and painting the “From Graveyards to Gardens” mural on the walls along the transitional corridor. The kids wanted it to reflect the story of who they once were and who they were aspiring to become.
Unfortunately, the City’s ongoing deficit issues led to the elimination of the Young Artist Movement’s youth diversion program and Journey’s position there. As we’ve seen in cities so many times before, reductions to youth programming are nearly always followed by upticks in youth crime—a natural repercussion when investment in youth development is no longer prioritized.
Despite this setback, Journey continues to celebrate the creativity of New Orleans’ youth through Spectrum Arts NOLA, the youth-led collective she helped found that embraces young people being “rooted in creativity, rising through community, and reimaging the future.”
We are truly inspired by Journey’s dedication to recognizing and bringing out the profound creativity of youth in the New Orleans legal system. Like us here at LCCR, Journey sees our kids as complete, creative, and complex human beings, and so much more than what they have been arrested for.
Join us as we honor Journey Allen at this year’s Celebration of Children’s Rights event. Click here to RSVP.
LCCR’s Champion of Justice Award has been rechristened this year to honor the legacy of Diamonique Whaley, a juvenile defense attorney in Orleans Parish who unexpectedly passed in early-2025. Diamonique’s passion for youth justice resonated with all those who knew her—from fellow attorneys to Juvenile Court judges to the young people she served. While her presence is solely missed by us all, her spirit lives on through this annual award bearing her name. Honorees for this award are nominated by LCCR’s staff and selected by a committee of LCCR staff and board members.
