Embracing Our Roots: Rooted and Rising

A conversation with Elder Amoke Kubat and Elder-in-the-Making, Wisdom Young (Mawusi)

Join artists, educators, activists, and mothers, elder Amoke Kubat, and elder-in-the-making, Wisdom Young (Mawusi) as they share, build, and heal about their journeys as Black girls, women, and mothers in America. They will discuss how time, place, family, and historic/current events have shaped their identities and their work. They will reflect on the seeds they were given
through generations, the seeds they are currently tending, and most importantly, the seeds they are sowing.

Please register to attend. This is an in-person event.

About the series

Embracing Our Roots: Rooted and Rising is a conversation series that reaches back into the history of Minnesota’s African American arts community to pass this knowledge along to the new generation of ascending leaders. The series features Elders and Culture Bearers who engage with young leaders to discuss significant milestones in Minnesota’s Black arts history and the impact that the artists and movements have had on our present-day capacity to survive the storms and keep creating. Embracing Our Roots is a collaboration with More Than a Single Story, In Black Ink, and the Givens Collection of African American Literature and Life. Funded by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Elder Amoke Kubat

About the speakers

Amoke Kubat is a HeARTIST and Spiritual Culture Bearer, who is curious about self, the natural world, and the Sacred. She reclaims an African Indigenous Spiritual sensibility to reconnect herself and Black people to Earth and Water, as a practice for holistic wellness. Amoke is the creator of YO MAMA’s The Art of Mothering Workshops and YO MAMA’s House Cooperative. Self-taught, she uses weaving, doll making, clay, and writing essays, short stories, poems, and plays, to continue to define herself and hold a position of wellness in an America sick with inequalities and inequities. Her plays, “ANGRY BLACK WOMAN & Well Intentioned White Girl”, “Old Good Kit Kat and Good Old Kit Kat”, and “Opera of Memories” speak to this. Her current works in progress explore the impact of extreme political disparities in urban and relational ecological living, activism for aging and disabilities for black women, and the medical gaslighting of Black women’s bodies.

Elder-in-the-Making, Wisdom Young (Mawusi)

Wisdom Young (Mawusi) is an artist, educator, activist, and mother of 3 divine children ranging in age from 7-24. She is co-founder and Executive Director of Black, Bold, and Brilliant, a north Minneapolis-based organization that inspires and empowers Black youth and families to tap into their purpose to shape a better community. Her many awards include a 2022 Wayfinder fellowship and a 2022 Creative Community Leadership Institute Fellowship. As an artist, she has directed and performed in numerous performances including Beyond the Box-MN Fringe Festival and Hennepin County Library Juneteenth. In 2020, her poetry is published in the A Moment Of Silence anthology. She holds a B.A. in Sociology and a minor in African American studies from the University of MN, and a Women in Business Leadership certificate from Ecornell University. She has been an educator at Harvest Best Academy since 2004 and is a certified yoga instructor at 612 Jungle.

Event details

What: Embracing Our Roots: Rooted and Rising, A conversation with Elder Amoke Kubat and Elder-in-the-Making, Wisdom Young (Mawusi)
When: Saturday, March 30, 2024 | 1-3 p.m.
Where: Elmer L. Andersen Library, room 120 | Parking & directions