Hosted by Black Table Arts Co-op
The program will be hybrid – you can join in person at Black Table Arts or if you prefer, you can participate virtually on Zoom Register here https://bit.ly/embracingourroots
After the uprisings for George Floyd and Daunte Wright, sharing knowledge inter-generationally is more important than ever. Join us for monthly Friday evening conversations where our elders will be gifting their insights into their histories of organizing, and also taking questions from our young people on how to move forward and stay fortified in the movement.
In the Spirit of Sankofa, this speaker series reaches back into the history of the Black literary arts in Minnesota in order to pass this knowledge on to the new generation of ascending as leaders in our Black literary arts. The series features Black Literary Elders and Culture Bearers who will discuss significant milestones in Minnesota’s Black literary history, and will engage audience members in conversation around the impact that both the writers and the movements have had on our present day capacity to survive the storms and keep creating.
The series will run from September 2021-February 22. Speakers will include Louis Alemayehu, Pamela Fletcher Bush, Carolyn Holbrook, Arleta Little and Ellena Schoop, Alexs Pate, and John Wright.The program will culminate with a tour of the Givens Collection of African American Literature based at the University of Minnesota.
SPEAKER BIO
Elder Alemayehu moved to the Twin Cities from Chicago in the late l960s. There was a lot going on in the arts community back then. Elder Louis will share some of his vast knowledge, including the first African American bookstore, radio programs about politics and arts, The Way Unlimited, and the African American Cultural Arts Center.
Louis Alemayehu is a writer, educator, administrator, poet, father, grandfather, great grandfather, performer, and activist of African and Native American heritage. He emerged as a poet during the Black Arts Movement in the early 1970s with mentoring from poet & essayist Haki Mahdubuti and his spiritual mother, the Pulitzer Prize Pulitzer winning poet, Gwendolyn Brooks. He is a cofounder of the Minneapolis-based Native Arts Circle and also of the award-winning poetry/jazz ensemble Ancestor Energy, which connects music with spoken word for healing. His honors include Intermedia Arts’ Diverse Visions Award, the Minnesota Spoken Word Association’s Urban Griot award., and a Leadership in Neighborhoods award from Saint Paul Companies. He was recognized by the Headwaters Foundation for life-long commitment to social justice and the Process Work Institute of Portland Oregon & Zurich Switzerland recognized him as its first World Work Elder.