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Special Event: Paisley Park Tour7801 Audubon Road
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Kick-Off Event: Black Midwest Poetry ReadingFeaturing Kisha Nicole Foster, Devon Ginn, Duriel E. Harris, Tish Jones, and Jamaal May.
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Film Screening:
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In the early-to-mid twentieth century, black Americans began migrating to the industrial center of the United States by the millions in search of the socioeconomic opportunities that largely eluded them in the post-Reconstruction South. These “promised lands,” as the historian Darlene Clark Hine has referred to them, offered the possibility of more stable employment and increased social mobility, even as the particular structures of Northern racism and discrimination constrained the lived realities of black migrants. Despite the oppressive regimes that shaped their lives, black people found ways to thrive, ultimately developing rich social and cultural networks that gave rise to some of the most impactful institutions, political mobilizations, and cultural forms in U.S. history.
SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE
Thursday, October 17
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1:30P-2:40P
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Paisley Park Tour
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5:00P-5:30P
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Registration & Doors Open
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5:30P-7:30P
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Black Midwest Poetry Reading
featuring Kisha Nicole Foster, Devon Ginn, Duriel E. Harris, Tish Jones, and Jamaal May. Hosted by E. G. Bailey. Readings will be followed by a panel discussion among the poets. |
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7:30P-8:30P
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Welcome Reception
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Friday, October 18
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9:00A-10:30A
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Keyword Panel #1: Home
This panel will explore various meanings and transformative possibilities of home in the Black Midwest. As a space of movement and transition (The Great Migration and automotive industry), we ask how our work, thought, and collectivity redefine, remap, and reimagine homeplace(s). We demonstrate how the alternative ways of knowing and being rooted in our homes (kitchen tables, porches, churches, etc.) resist dominant structures such as automation, disinvestment, and dispossession. We aim to articulate, through words and art, the task of making and designating home as a space of resistance, futurity, and social transformation. Panelists Jamarrea Bishop Kidiocus Carroll Vanessa Taylor Yolanda Williams Tamara Winfrey-Harris Moderator: Ezekiel Joubert |
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10:30A-10:45A
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Break
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10:45A-12:15P
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Keyword Panel #2: Justice
This panel focuses on the importance of art, activism, and scholarship as transformative strategies for realizing a more just world. Our esteemed panelists each have strong reputations for speaking truth to power and demanding justice. We will discuss how the Black Midwest has nurtured their talents and crafts, while also acting as an impetus for remaining connected to struggles in the Midwest and beyond. Panelists Lena K. Gardner David Todd Lawrence Crystal Moten Nayyirah Shariff Jordan Weber Moderator: Rahsaan Mahadeo |
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12:15P-1:30P
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Lunch (Provided)
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1:30P-3:00P
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Keyword Panel #3: Freedom
At the heart of the Black experience in the US is the demand for Freedom. To be free has been at the heart of the Black Freedom Movement in the US in the Midwest, across the nation, Africa, and the African diaspora. Given the current moment in Black life, what does it mean to “Get Free”? A cross section of activists, artists, and academics on this panel take on the question of what freedom means, what it means to get free, and what it means to be a freedom fighter today in the Black Midwest and beyond. Panelists Freda Fair Tanisha C. Ford Brian Lozenski Jamala Rogers Wylliam Smith Moderator: Rose Brewer |
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3:00P-3:15P
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Break
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3:15P-4:30P
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Film screening: Songs for My Right Side (2019, 26 min.)
Director and Producer Q&A: Jeffrey C. Wray & Tama Hamilton-Wray More information about the film is available here. |
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4:30P-6:30P
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Dinner break (on your own)
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6:30P-8:00P
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Film screening: Thee Debauchery Ball (2019, 71 min.)
Director Q&A: David Weathersby More information about the film is available here. |
Saturday, October 19
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8:30A-9:45A
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Black Midwest Initiative Planning Meeting + Breakfast
Humphrey, Room 184 This meeting is open to anyone who is interested in helping to move forward the work of the Black Midwest Initiative. We will discuss the future progress of the Initiative including mission, fundraising, and the location of the next Black Midwest Symposium. Breakfast will be served for attendees. |
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10:00A-11:30A
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Keyword Panel #4: Space
This panel examines the idea of space, a boundless material and discursive plane in which the Black body situates itself in relation to other bodies, practices, and ideas. In this panel we look at Black life as it is lived in the Midwest, a place thought to be lacking or wholly absent of Blackness. We talk through a range of Black spatial politics, as produced and performed across different spaces. We examine the when and where of Blackness, and how artists, scholars, and activists are inventing new spaces of imagination outside of, but in between, East and West Coast metropoles. Panelists Marlon M. Bailey Michelle S. Johnson Mikael Owunna Katherine Simóne Reynolds Moderator: Tia-Simone Gardner |
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11:30A-11:45A
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Break
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11:45A-1:15P
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Keyword Panel #5: Twin Cities
Minnesota prides itself on its niceness wrapped into an American heartland mythology around hard work and morality that conceals its pernicious disparities in health, education and housing for Black residents. This panel will be a conversation examining what the state of Minnesota often (necessarily?) conceals in its representation of itself and how Black life in the Twin Cities is substantively more than its opposition to an anti-black state. Panelists Jeremiah Ellison Andrea Jenkins Lissa Jones Lucina Kayee Keith Mayes Davu Seru Moderator: Chaun Webster |
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1:15P-1:30P
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Closing Comments & Farewell
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1:30P-6:00P
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Philipo Dyauli – Select Recent Works
Studio 400 | 1500 Jackson Street NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413 |
MEET THE SPEAKERS
E.G. BaileyE.G. Bailey, recently named one of Filmmaker magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film; is an Ivey award-winning artist, filmmaker, director and producer. He is the recipient of a regional Emmy, LIN travel grant, and the Hughes, Diop, Knight Poetry Award from the Gwendolyn Brooks Writers Conference. His work is featured in the Target Art Connects commercial, now archived at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC). He was an editor for the film, Petting Zoo, which debuted at the 65th International Berlin Film Festival. Baileyhas directed and assisted plays for well-known production houses, such as: The Guthrie, Pillsbury House, and Children’s Theater. Titles include: Othello, Amiri Baraka’s Wise Why’s, Juno and the Paycock, The Brother Size, and Sha Cage’s N-Word and U/G/L/Y. He is the co-founder of Tru Ruts Endeavors, MN Spoken Word Association, and the Million Artist Movement. Bailey’s written works have been published in Solid Ground, the millennial issue of Drumvoices Revue, Warpland, a publication by the Gwendolyn Brooks Center, and Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota, an anthology. His latest work includes the co-curation of America Now!, a special film project which has taken place at the Tampere Film Festival in Finland, Latvia and others; and his film, New Neighbors, premiered at the 2017 Sundance film festival and has been shown at over 120 festivals world-wide. 
Jamarrea BishopJamarrea Bishop is a father, self-taught artist and organic intellectual from Sumpter Township, Michigan. Drawing from the urban and rural landscapes of Southeast Michigan, he uses found and natural materials to construct architectural models. The miniature structures he creates are speculative and utopian. They represent eco-environments, cultural buildings, and living spaces imagined for black liberation, collectivity, thought, and education in the real and imaginary past, present, and future. His work aims to transform how we imagine knowing and being in the world. 
Kidiocus CarrollKidiocus Carroll is a Doctoral Candidate in American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His work is concerned with the meaning and making of Black Life in the Midwest with a particular focus on Black migratory practice and lived experience in postindustrial Milwaukee. 
Freda FairFreda Fair is assistant professor of gender studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. Freda’s research centers on questions of U.S. black gender and sexual difference, labor, regionality, and queer cultural production. Their work in the academy is informed by community-based archival, library, social issue, and museum collaborations. Freda can be reached at ffair@iu.edu. 
Tanisha C. FordTanisha C. Ford is and award-winning writer, cultural critic, and historian. She is the author of Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), which won the 2016 Organization of American Historians’ Liberty Legacy Foundation Award; Kwame Brathwaite: Black is Beautiful (Aperture, 2019) and Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl's Love Letter to the Power of Fashion (St. Martin's, 2019). Ford’s work centers on social movement history, feminist issues, material culture, the built environment, black life in the Rust Belt, girlhood studies, and fashion, beauty, and body politics. Her scholarship has published in the Journal of Southern History, NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, the Black Scholar, and QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking. Ford’s public writing and cultural commentary have been featured in the Atlantic, the New York Times, Elle, and the Root. Her research has been supported by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Ford Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Ford is Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History at the University of Delaware. 
Devon GinnDevon Ginn (he/him/they/them) has established long-lasting relationships by working alongside influential arts and culture hubs over the past nine years. Ginn is a curator, Americans for the Arts 2019-2020 Arts + Culture Leaders of Color Fellow, IndyHub 1826 alum, creative placekeeper + placemaker, and poet. As a freelance teaching artist, Ginn travels from state-to-state implementing his performance poetry and creative writing lesson plans for high school & college students. Deliberately collaborating with ground-breaking institutions and creatives on the forefront of change, his work as a visual artist, writer, nonprofit administrator, and performance artist is a reflection of all his learned and unlearned experiences. 
Duriel E. HarrisDuriel E. Harris is a poet, performer, and sound artist. She is author of three print volumes of poetry, including her most recent award winning, No Dictionary of a Living Tongue (Nightboat, 2017), Drag (2003) and Amnesiac: Poems (2010), and her multi-genre one-woman theatrical performance Thingification. A featured resident poet/teacher at the Lynden Sculpture Garden and the transformational Naropa Capitalocene Summer Writing Program, Harris was a guest at the powerful Festival Internacional de Poesía de La Habana (Cuba). Cofounder of the avant garde poetry/performance trio The Black Took Collective, Harris is showcased in Manual Cinema’s short film celebrating the Walt Whitman BiCentennial and in Letters to the Future: Black WOMEN/Radical WRITING. The 2018 Offen Poet, Harris is an associate professor of English in the graduate creative writing program at Illinois State University and the Editor of Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora. 
Michelle S. JohnsonMichelle S. Johnson, a public scholar in the fields of African American history, literature and cultural production, has produced extensive work securing and promoting spaces where socially marginalized people express their autonomous and authentic selves. Johnson teaches and consults widely on historic interpretation of Black experiences in Michigan from the colonial era to the present. Co-founder and former Executive Director of Fire Historical and Cultural Arts Collaborative, Johnson facilitates and participates in numerous curated initiatives. Named WIDR’s “most beloved DJ” Johnson has appeared as weekly host DJ Disobedience for Slip Back Soul for 13 years. 
Tish JonesFounder & Executive Director of TruArtSpeaks, Tish Jones is a poet, performer, educator and organizer from Saint Paul, Minnesota. She has performed at CBGB, Kaplan Theater, The Walker Art Center, Intermedia Arts, The Cedar Cultural Center and more. Her work can be found in the Minnesota Humanities Center's anthology entitled, Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2015), the 2011 and 2013 Saint Paul Almanac, and the Loft Literary Center's Nation of Immigrants audio CD. A graduate fellow of the inaugural Intercultural Leadership Institute, Jones has always had a passion for bridging arts & culture, civic engagement and youth development. Senior Field Building Strategist for Youth Speaks and Co-Director of Brave New Voices, her work explores the ways in which art can function as a tool for social transformation, liberation and education. For more on her personal praxis in this arena, see Jones’ TEDxMinneapolis Talk on Spoken Word as a Radical Practice of Freedom. 
Lucina KayeeLucina Kayee is a queer Liberian community organizer, foster care advocate, and co-founder of MY Generation, a youth-run organization that embraces the collaboration between young people of color and their circle of support. Lucina is currently working on U.S. Congressman. John Lewis’ Every Child Deserves a Family Act Campaign and is a Campus Ambassador for the Robert F. Kennedy Young Leaders program. She lives on the Eastside of Saint Paul with her partner and his many plants. Pronouns: she, her, hers 
Brian LozenskiBrian Lozenski is an assistant professor of urban and multicultural education in the Educational Studies Department at Macalester College. He received his doctorate from the University of Minnesota where he studied the cultural contexts of teaching and learning. His scholarship explores the intersections of critical participatory action research, black intellectual traditions in education, and cultural sustainability in the education of youth of African descent. 
Jamaal MayJamaal May is a writer, editor, mixed-media artist, sound engineer, and member of the Organic Machine Nation. His two books are Hum and The Big Book of Exit Strategies (Alice James Books 2013,2016). Awards and honors include The Spirit of Detroit Award, the Benjamin Danks Award, American Library Association’s Notable Book Award, and fellowships from Cave Canem, Bread Loaf Conference, the Lanan Foundation, and Bucknell University. From Hamtramck, Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Traverse City, he collaborates with a web of creative do-gooders on the relaunch of OW! Lit, the Qualia Bridge creative and research project, and Jamtramck Beat Systems, a local grassroots musician support outfit. Jamaal’s next poetry collection is a sonic chapbook appearing on vinyl with an 11x11 art/lyric book and a digital version available. He is an assistant professor at Wayne State University. 
Crystal MotenCrystal M. Moten is Curator of African American History in the Division of Work and Industry at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. She researches and writes about Black women’s post-World War II civil rights activism in the urban Midwest. She has published in a number of venues including the Journal of Civil and Human Rights, Souls and in the collection The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle Outside of the South. She is currently working on her manuscript, We Work to Bloom: Black Women’s Intellectual and Economic Activism in Postwar Milwaukee. 
Jamala RogersJamala Rogers is a veteran organizer with deep roots in the Black Liberation Movement. Her battlefronts are wherever her people are including mass incarceration, police terrorism, reproductive justice and youth development. Rogers is a poet and prolific writer. She has featured columns in three media platforms, BlackCommentator.com, Capital City Hues and the award-winning St. Louis American. She's the author of countless essays and several books including Ferguson is America: Roots of Rebellion. Rogers is faculty for the Black Feminist Organizing School. She is the recipient of numerous community service awards and was the 2017 Organizer-in-Residence at The Havens Center for Social Justice-UW Madison. 
Davu SeruNorth Minneapolis native, Saint Paul transplant Davu Seru is visiting faculty in the Department of English at Hamline University. His teaching, research and writing concern 20th-century African American literary and cultural studies. As co-author of the book Sights, Sounds, Soul: The Twin Cities through the Lens of Charles Chamblis (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2017), Seru provides a cursory examination of the national and regional migration patterns that helped to shape the culture of the Black Twin Cities of the middle 70s to mid 1980s. In addition to his scholarly work, Davu is a drummer, improviser and composer for avant-garde "jazz" ensembles including the Chicago-based Black Praxis Sound Project. 
Katherine Simóne ReynoldsKatherine Simóne Reynolds’ practice works to physicalize emotions and experiences by constructing pieces that include portrait photography, video works, and choreography. In the process of making subtle changes to her practice she has learned that creating an environment built on intention brings the most disarming feelings to her work. Utilizing the Black body and her own narrative as a place of departure has made her question her own navigation of ownership, inclusion, and authenticity within a contemporary gaze. She draws inspiration from Black glamour, the Black athlete, and the Church. Her practice generally deals in Blackness from my her own perspective and she continually searches for what it means to produce “Black work.” She has exhibited work within many spaces and institutions around Saint Louis, including the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, and The Luminary. She has exhibited in local, national, and international group and solo shows, has spoken at The Contemporary Art Museum of Saint Louis and The Saint Louis Art Museum, and MoMA for their Gallery Sessions where she also performed. She has recently exhibited work in the In Practice group exhibition at The Sculpture center, and has been appointed as the new curator at The Luminary a non-profit art institution in Saint Louis, MO. 
David WeathersbyDavid Weathersby is a filmmaker/videographer and the founder of City Vanguard, an arts organization that helps independent filmmakers create community-based documentaries for educational and cultural institutions. As a director, he has produced films, documentaries, music videos and video art projects. His past projects include the documentaries Got the Love, Jazz Occurrence, The Color of Art and Thee Debauchery Ball. His work has been featured on The Africa Channel, WTTW and various film festivals including Pan African Film Festival, Sand Diego Black Film Festival, Collected Voices Film Festival, Black Harvest Film Festival, Image Union Film Festival, Roxbury International Film Festival and The Chicago Short Comedy Film Festival. In 2018, he was awarded a Black Excellence award for best director by the African American Arts Alliance of Chicago. 
Chaun WebsterChaun Webster is a poet and graphic designer who draws from an interest in graffiti, collage, simultaneity, and the visuality of text. Webster utilizes these methods to investigate race--the instability of blackness and black subjectivities, geography, memory, and the body. These investigations engage the question of absence, archiving what is missing from the landscape as a number of communities watch neighborhoods, once populated with familiar presences, dissolve in the vernacular of redevelopment and its attendant colonial logic. Webster’s debut book, Gentry!fication: or the scene of the crime, was published by Noemi Press in 2018 and received the Minnesota Book Award for poetry. 
Tamara Winfrey-HarrisTamara Winfrey-Harris is a writer who specializes in the ever-evolving space where current events, politics, and pop culture intersect with race and gender. Her work has appeared in media, including Salon, The Guardian, Cosmopolitan, New York Magazine and The New York Times, where she addressed Rachel Dolezal’s white privilege and the erasure of black Midwesterners. Her essays also appear in books such as The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery and The Lemonade Reader. Tamara’s first book is The Sisters are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative for Black Women in America (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Summer 2015). www.TamaraWinfreyHarris.com |
Marlon M. BaileyMarlon M. Bailey is Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. Marlon has served as the Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor in Africana Studies at Carleton College; the Distinguished Weinberg Fellow in the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University, and a Visiting Professor at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) at the University of California, San Francisco. Marlon’s book, Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit, was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2013. In 2014, Butch Queens Up in Pumps was awarded the Alan Bray Memorial Book Prize by the GL/Q Caucus of the Modern Language Association and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Book Award in LGBT Studies. Dr. Bailey has published in American Quarterly, GLQ, Signs, Feminist Studies, Souls, Gender, Place, and Culture, The Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services, AIDS Patient Care & STDs, LGBT Health, and several book collections. Marlon’s essay, “Black Gay (Raw) Sex,” appears in No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies (Duke U Press 2016), edited by E. Patrick Johnson. Marlon is also a performing artist and recently presented his solo-performance called, “Exploring Black Gay Sex, Love, and Life,” at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Marlon is the co-editor of the New Sexual Worlds book series, with Jeffrey McCune, at the University of California Press. 
Rose BrewerDr. Rose M. Brewer is an activist scholar and The Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor and past chairperson of the Department of African American & African Studies, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She holds affiliated appointments in Sociology and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. Brewer publishes extensively on Black feminism, political economy, and race, class, gender. Her most recent co-edited volume is Rod Bush: Lessons from a Black Radical Scholar on Liberation, Love, and Justice. She is a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers, a recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Teaching award and a College of Liberal Arts Dean’s Medalist. 
Jeremiah EllisonMinneapolis Ward 5 City Council Member, Jeremiah Ellison, was born and raised in North Minneapolis – the ward he represents. He’s an artist, and painted his first mural at age 8 on the corner of Plymouth and Dupont. As an artist and organizer, Jeremiah has dedicated himself to propping up the genius of his Northside community. He's collaborated with young people as a teaching artist and as a homeless youth counselor -- helping to equip young people with tools to create new reflections of their community and envision bold futures for themselves. Jeremiah won on a platform that includes championing workers’ rights, ensuring affordable and decent housing for all residents, addressing issues of environmental justice, and building community safety solutions from the bottom up. Jeremiah chairs the Elections and Rules Committee, is the Vice Chair of both the Housing Policy & Development Committee, and the Economic Development & Regulatory Services Committee, and serves on the Zoning and Planning and Public Safety Committees. Council Member Ellison chairs the Elections and Rules Committee, is the Vice Chair of both the Housing Policy and Development Committee, and the Economic Development and Regulatory Services Committee, and serves on the Zoning and Planning and Public Safety Committees. 
Kisha Nicole FosterKisha Nicole Foster is a mother, nationally performing poet, and teaching artist. The author of Poems: 1999-2014 and Blood Work, Foster is the recipient of the 2019 Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature. Foster is also in her fourth year as Regional Coordinator for Poetry Out Loud/ Ohio Arts Council, and a two time Pink Door Fellow. She is currently the Literary Cleveland Fellow/Cleveland Stories program coordinator, teaching artist with Lake Erie Ink and crafted the poem for the Justice Center Mural Project with muralist Katherine Chilcote. Foster uses her locution as a conduit towards healing and fostering truth within language; allowing mistakes and humility to guide her craft. 
Lena K. GardnerLena K. Gardner is one of the founding leaders of the Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism Organizing Collective (BLUU) and the current Executive Director. She is active in the social justice and political change communities in Minneapolis. Much of her work as been in the world of the Unitarian Universalist faith. She lives in Robbinsdale with her cat, Merlin, and loves the Boundary Waters. She graduated in 2015 with her Masters in Justice and Peace studies from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities and her undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota in 2006. 
Tia-Simone GardnerTia-Simone Gardner is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and Black feminist scholar. Her creative and scholarly practice are interested interdisciplinary strategies and engage ideas of ritual, iconoclasm, and geography. Gardner received her BA in Art and Art History from the University of Alabama in Birmingham. In 2009 she received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Practices and Time-Based Media from the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently working on a project on Blackness and the Mississippi River as well as a photographic/writing project with her mother that addresses questions of biopolitics, Black memory and Indigeneity by looking at the houses that the women in her family lived in the post-bellum South. 
Tama Hamilton-WrayTama Hamilton-Wray is a scholar-practitioner who holds an associate professor position at Michigan State University and works as an independent filmmaker. Her research and teaching interests include Global African Cinema and Black feminist cultural production and theory. Her most recent essay on filmmaker Haile Gerima appears in her co-edited volume, New Directions in the Study of the African Diaspora: Uncharted Theme and Alternative Representations (MSU Press, 2018). With partner, Jeffrey C. Wray, Hamilton-Wray has produced a number of films; their upcoming film Songs for My Right Side is set for release in late 2019. 
Andrea JenkinsAndrea Jenkins is a writer, performance artist, poet, and transgender activist. She is the first African American openly trans woman to be elected to office in the United States. Jenkins moved to Minnesota to attend the University of Minnesota in 1979 and was hired by the Hennepin County government, where she worked for a decade. Jenkins worked as a staff member on the Minneapolis City Council for 12 years before beginning work as curator of the Transgender Oral History Project at the University of Minnesota's Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies. She holds a Masters Degree in Community Development from Southern New Hampshire University, a MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University and a Bachelors Degrees in Human Services from Metropolitan State University. She is a nationally and internationally recognized writer and artist, a 2011 Bush Fellow to advance the work of transgender inclusion, and the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. In 2018 she completed the Senior Executives in State and Local Government at Harvard University. 
Lissa JonesCreator and Host of ‘Urban Agenda’ on KMOJ Radio, and Host of ‘Black Market Reads’, a podcast of the Givens Foundation for African American Literature. Public Intellectual: ‘An intellectual who expresses views (especially on popular topics) intended to be accessible to a general audience.’ Oxford Dictionary, 2019 Dubbed a ‘public intellectual’ by Chair Emeritus of American History at Macalester College, Mahmoud El-Kati, Lissa reluctantly takes on the moniker, but readily embraces the opportunity to bring thoughtful examination of African American life and culture into the public discourse on radio, through podcasting, and for a time, through a newspaper column. A lover of reading, learning, teaching, and use of voice, Lissa is a highly sought after speaker, facilitator, and mistress of ceremonies. Lissa is the creator of ‘Urban Agenda’,a weekly program she has hosted on KMOJ Radio, Minnesota’s oldest black radio station, for the last eleven years. Lissa is also the Host of ‘Black Market Reads’, a podcast of the Givens Foundation for African American Literature, amplifying the black literary canon. Lissa is a member of the Twin Cities chapter of Black Journalists, and is co-chair of the ‘Women in the NAACP’ committee for the Minneapolis NAACP. 
Ezekiel Joubert IIIEzekiel Joubert III is an educator, community involved scholar and creative writer. He is an Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations in the Division of Advanced and Applied Studies at California State University-Los Angeles. His work with pre-service teachers focuses on how to make social change in and out of their classrooms by engaging in historical injustices and student resistance. His research explores the educational challenges and visions of black rural communities near Metro Detroit, where he researches the ways in which black students and their families respond to and reimagine educational structures that prevent equal access to quality education and student movement. His current projects include writing on the relationship between racial capitalism and black education, gathering life histories of black elders living in rural Metro Detroit, forming an urban-rural Black Southeast Michigan collaborative and writing a collection of speculative poems and short stories on teaching in underserved schools. 
David Todd LawrenceDavid Todd Lawrence is Associate Professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Mn, where he teaches African-American literature and culture, folklore studies, and cultural studies. His research and teaching areas include James Baldwin, racial passing and ambiguity, African-American genre fiction, speculative black writing, folklore studies, and ethnographic writing. His book, When They Blew the Levee: Race, Politics and Community in Pinhook, Mo (2018), co-authored with Elaine Lawless, is an ethnographic project done in collaboration with residents of Pinhook, Missouri, an African American town destroyed when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers intentionally breached the Birds Point-New Madrid levee during the Mississippi River Flood of 2011. 
Rahsaan MahadeoRahsaan Mahadeo is a recent graduate of the University of Minnesota and contributor to the Black Midwest Initiative. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology at Georgetown University. Rahsaan's research focuses on how racialized youth in urbanized space reckon with time. He looks at how time is racialized, how race is temporalized and how race, racialization and racism condition youth’s perspectives on time. He recently defended his dissertation titled "Funk the Clock: Transgressing Time while Young, Prescient and Black." 
Keith MayesDr. Keith Mayes is an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota; former chair of the Department of African American & African Studies; and the Horace T. Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor. Dr. Mayes earned his Ph.D. in History from Princeton University. His teaching and research interests include the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements; education policy and history; black holiday traditions; racial equity and critical ethnic studies pedagogy; and the history of African Americans. Dr. Mayes has published one book entitled Kwanzaa: Black Power and the Making of the African American Holiday Tradition. He is currently working on another book entitled, The Unteachables: Civil Rights, Disability Rights and the Origins of Black Special Education. Dr. Mayes established the Mayes Educational Group, LLC, which provides consultant, professional development, and training services in the areas of racial equity; curriculum development; and social studies. Some of his current and former clients include the Omaha Public Schools, Minneapolis Public Schools; District 279-Osseo Public schools; District 196-Apple Valley, Eagan, Rosemount Public Schools; Independent School District 194 (Lakeville, MN); District 833-South Washington County Schools; and St. Paul Public Schools; National Geographic; the History Channel; the Minnesota Humanities Center; and the Minnesota Department of Education. Dr. Mayes has lectured widely throughout the Twin Cities Metro area in K-12 schools, churches, municipal governments and corporations. He has appeared on various media outlets, such as KMOJ, KARE-11 News, WCCO Channel 4, KSTP, Minnesota Public Radio, Radio Minnesota, KFAI, and National Public Radio. 
Mikael OwunnaMikael Chukwuma Owunna (b. 1990) is an award-winning queer Nigerian-Swedish artist, photographer, Fulbright Scholar and engineer born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Mikael's work center around identity while bending the medium with his engineering and multidisciplinary background. His work has exhibited across Asia, Europe and North America and been featured in media ranging from the New York Times, PBS, NPR, BuzzFeed to Teen Vogue. Mikael has spoken and lectured about his work at venues including World Press Photo (Netherlands), Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School, Duke University, the Paris Institute of Political Studies (France) and Sveriges Radio (Sweden). 
Nayyirah ShariffNayyirah Shariff is a grassroots organizer based in Flint, Michigan. Nayyirah was one of the co-founders of the Flint Democracy Defense League, a grassroots group formed to confront Flint's emergency manager in 2011. She has nearly ten years experience organizing around local, state, and national electoral and issue campaigns. She has been featured on Democracy Now!, Move to Amend podcast, Al-Jazeera and Netroots Nation speaking out about the problems with Flint’s water and with Michigan’s Emergency Management of local governments. She is currently the Director of Flint Rising, a coalition of Flint residents and community groups, labor, and progressive allies that formed in response to Flint's emergency declaration. 
Wylliam SmithI grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Currently, I attend the University of Iowa working towards a degree in English and Creative Writing. After arriving in Iowa I wrote for The Daily Iowan Newspaper as an opinions columnist. Some of my most popular stories are Smith: The Reality of Being Black In Iowa, Smith: The Black Superhero, and Smith: I am more than just a Black man. While at the Daily Iowan I was declared the Iowa Master Columnist by the Iowa Newspaper Foundation. Currently, I work as a freelance writer, and I am writing two comic books. 
Vanessa TaylorVanessa Taylor is a writer based out of Philadelphia, although the Midwest will always be home. Originally getting her start as an organizer in Minneapolis, she uses writing as an extension of community work. Through articles, essays, fiction, and more, she focuses on exploring Black Muslim womanhood and technology. Her articles have appeared in outlets such as Teen Vogue, Al Jazeera English, and The Intercept. Her essays and fiction have appeared in Catapult, as Editor’s Pick in Barren Magazine, and in Belt Magazine — where she received a Pushcart Prize nomination. She is a 2019 Echoing Ida cohort member. 
Jordan WeberJordan Weber is a Des Moines-based multi-disciplinary artist/activist who works at the cross section of race and environmental justice. His work has been exhibited at White Box, New York; Union for Contemporary Art, Omaha; Intersect Art Center, St. Louis; Des Moines Art Center; Macalester College,Twin Cities, Smack Mellon, New York; Manifest Justice, Los Angeles; Charlotte Street Foundation; Kansas City; Open Engagement, Chicago. Weber is best known for his deconstructed police vehicles turned community gardens/workout equipment and recontextualized abandoned structures. Awards and fellowships include Harvard LOEB candidate, A Blade of Grass fellowship NYC, Tanne Foundation fellow, Des Moines Public Art Foundation fellow and African American Leadership Fellow. 
Yolanda WilliamsYolanda Y. Williams, Ph.D., is a performer, educator, scholar, and pastor. Her performance career has taken her throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa, performing Western Art Music, Jazz, and Gospel. Yolanda has performed both soprano and mezzo-soprano repertoire with Vocalessence, the Rochester Symphony, La Choeur Symphonique de Fribourg, Lundi Sept Heures, Ensemble de Cuivres Jurassien, the Montreux Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic. Ms. Williams serves on the faculties of the University of Minnesota and Pine Technical College where her teaching responsibilities include courses in African American music history, general music history, music theory, and performance. Yolanda’s scholarly work on musical styles and genres of the African Diaspora can be found in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore (2005) and the Encyclopedia of African American Music (2010). Yolanda is appointed Associate Pastor at Brunswick United Methodist Church in Crystal. 
Jeffrey C. WrayJeffrey C. Wray is a Professor of Film Studies at Michigan State University and an independent filmmaker. Recent films include Songs for My Right Side, a 2019 half-hour drama, BLAT! Pack Live, a 2016 music documentary, and The Evolution of Bert, a 2014 feature-narrative that premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival and was nominated for the Roger Ebert Award. Wray’s screenplays include The Soul Singer, a drama and 2018 Nicholl Academy Award Screenwriting Fellowship Quarterfinalist, and Eclipse, a political drama set in the turbulent summer of 1964. His 2018 essay “How Ella Mae Wray Seized the Opportunities of 1968” was published in The Atlantic. |
HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS
Courtyard Minneapolis Downtown -- .3 Miles from Cowles Auditorium
1500 Washington Ave South
Minneapolis, MN 55454
Reservations: 877-699-3216 (ask for the Black Midwest group rate)
Guest room group rate: $146.00 p/night
Group rate is available until full or Thursday, September 26, 2019. (Although the deadline has passed, rooms may still be available at the block rate, but you'll need to call the hotel directly.)
Book Courtyard Minneapolis Downtown
Other Nearby Hotels
(Discounts may be available at these hotels if you mention that you're visiting the University of Minnesota.)
Aloft Minneapolis .7 miles from Cowles Auditorium 900 Washington Ave S Minneapolis, MN 55415 612-455-8400 Book Aloft Minneapolis 
Renaissance Minneapolis, The Depot 1.2 miles from Cowles Auditorium 225 3rd Ave S Minneapolis, MN 55401 612-375-1700 Book Renaissance Minneapolis |
Graduate Minneapolis 1.8 miles from Cowles Auditorium 615 Washington Ave SE Minneapolis, MN 55414 612-379-8888 Book Graduate Minneapolis 
Days Hotel 2.1 miles from Cowles Auditorium 2407 University Ave SE Minneapolis, MN 55414 612-623-3999 Book Days Hotel |
FAQ
How do I get to Cowles Auditorium?
Cowles is located within the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, which is located on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota campus. More specific location information and travel directions are available here and interactive campus maps are available here.
I am driving to the symposium. Where should I park?
The most convenient parking is the 19th Avenue Ramp which is located directly across the street from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. The 21st Avenue Ramp is just south of the adjacent Carlson School of Management. Parking at either lot begins at $3.00 p/hour and has a $13.00 maximum daily rate. Metered street parking may also be available.
How can I make an accessibility request?
You are able to request accommodations when you register for the symposium. Alternatively, you can submit your request via email by October 10. We will make every effort to provide reasonable accommodations for attendees with disabilities.
I’d really like to attend the symposium but cannot afford the registration fee, what can I do?
We do not want anyone to miss out on the symposium due to financial hardship. Send us an email with the details of your request as soon as possible and we will be in touch.
Can I bring my children to the symposium?
While we will not be providing childcare, children are welcome to attend the symposium and youth age 17 and under are free with registration by October 9. After October 9, the price raises to $10 per child. Please note that all symposium events may not be suitable for children--parents and guardians are expected to use their discretion.
Will any of the symposium events be livestreamed?
No, unfortunately we will not be livestreaming symposium events.
How do I keep up with what the Black Midwest Initiative is doing after the conclusion of the symposium?
Sign up for our mailing list!
Cowles is located within the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, which is located on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota campus. More specific location information and travel directions are available here and interactive campus maps are available here.
I am driving to the symposium. Where should I park?
The most convenient parking is the 19th Avenue Ramp which is located directly across the street from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. The 21st Avenue Ramp is just south of the adjacent Carlson School of Management. Parking at either lot begins at $3.00 p/hour and has a $13.00 maximum daily rate. Metered street parking may also be available.
How can I make an accessibility request?
You are able to request accommodations when you register for the symposium. Alternatively, you can submit your request via email by October 10. We will make every effort to provide reasonable accommodations for attendees with disabilities.
I’d really like to attend the symposium but cannot afford the registration fee, what can I do?
We do not want anyone to miss out on the symposium due to financial hardship. Send us an email with the details of your request as soon as possible and we will be in touch.
Can I bring my children to the symposium?
While we will not be providing childcare, children are welcome to attend the symposium and youth age 17 and under are free with registration by October 9. After October 9, the price raises to $10 per child. Please note that all symposium events may not be suitable for children--parents and guardians are expected to use their discretion.
Will any of the symposium events be livestreamed?
No, unfortunately we will not be livestreaming symposium events.
How do I keep up with what the Black Midwest Initiative is doing after the conclusion of the symposium?
Sign up for our mailing list!