THE SOJOURNER TRUTH LEADERSHIP CIRCLE PRESENTS: AN EVENING WITH MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY & ANDREA JENKINS
On Tuesday, October 3rd, 2017 we hosted a conversation between celebrated author, professor, and television personality Melissa Harris-Perry and transgender, poet, activist, and politician Andrea Jenkins, sharing reflections on racial justice, women’s leadership, and gender identity.
This event was the culmination of a day-long Auburn community celebration of the lives and leadership of the second cohort of the Sojourner Truth Leadership Circle, specifically focused on the wholeness and wellness needs of Black transgender women activists of faith and moral courage.
The discussion was followed by a Q&A with the audience.
Learn more: Read our Voices story on this moving event
About The Speakers:
Melissa Harris-Perry is the Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University. There she is the Executive Director of the Pro Humanitate Institute and founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Center. She hosted the television show “Melissa Harris-Perry” from 2012-2016 on weekend mornings on MSNBC. She is also the author of the award-winning Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought, and Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America.
Andrea Jenkins has more than 25 years of public service experience as a Minneapolis City Council policy aide, nonprofit executive director, and consultant. She is also an award-winning poet, writer, and performer, having earned fellowships from the Bush Foundation, the Givens Foundation, and the Playwrights Center, among others. Andrea is a well-known public speaker and has delivered keynote addresses on college campuses and at conferences throughout the country. In 2015, she became the first Oral Historian for the Transgender Oral History Project of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies at the University of Minnesota.
Lisa Anderson is Vice President, Embodied Justice Leadership at Auburn Seminary, where she works with Auburn’s program team to advance multi-faith movements for justice by creating spaces where faith/spirit rooted leaders intersectional organizing, bridging the divide between theology and activism, equipping and on deepening the spiritually grounding of leaders in a multifaith movement for justice via the creation and curation of worship and liturgical resources.
Other Conversations:
Auburn Conversations are sponsored by the May and Samuel Rudin Foundation.
