Marco A. McWilliams is a Black Studies scholar, Brazilian )iu )itsu black belt and owner of ProvidenceBJJ, with over twenty years of training, competition, and teaching experience in the "gentle art". McWilliams is also a community-based organizer/educator and published writer with nearly two decades of engaged scholarship work in convening diverse learning communities. McWilliams was the founding instructor of the influential Black Studies program at DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality) where his teaching focused on using the Black Radical Tradition as a point of departure to design strategies for social change.

McWilliams has taught, lectured, and workshopped at colleges and universities across the nation such as Brown University, Morehouse College, Princeton University, Rhode Island School of Design, University of Rhode Island, ArtCenter College of Design, Rhode Island College and more. Additionally, he works with middle/high school students, educators, and families as primary stakeholders in progressive education transformation agendas. He was a program coordinator and educator at Brown University's Swearer Center where he was honored to be the inaugural 2017 Junior Fellow and Practitioner-in-Residence. In 2020 he accepted a Providence mayoral appointment to the Special Committee for the Review of Commemorative Works. McWilliams has a BA in Africana Studies from Rhode Island College and is a grad student alum of Brown University's Department of American Studies.