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In partnership with the Ramsey County Historical Society

How did a Black woman from Texas become one of the most well-known civil right activists in Minnesota? After seven decades of speaking up and standing up, of fighting for fairness in voting, housing, education, and employment, Dr. Josie Johnson has finally written her memoir. Hope in the Struggle gives us an opportunity to not only learn about her, but to learn from her.

Dr. Johnson’s story began in segregated Texas, where her father organized against the Poll Tax, launching her on a lifetime of activism which brought her to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, where she cast her vote for Barack Obama for president Her memoir offers a close-up picture of what that struggle has entailed, whether working as a community organizer for the Minneapolis Urban League or lobbying for fair housing and employment laws, investigating civil rights abuses or co-chairing the Minnesota delegation to the March on Washington, becoming the first African American to serve on the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents or creating the university’s Office of the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs with a focus on minority affairs and diversity. An intimate view of civil rights history in the making, Hope in the Struggle is a uniquely inspiring life story for these current dark and divisive times, a testament to how one determined soul can make the world a better place.

ESFL and RCHS are pleased to present Dr. Johnson in conversation with an activist from a younger generation, Tish Jones.

Founder & Executive Director of TruArtSpeaks – an arts & culture nonprofit based in  Saint Paul, MN – Tish Jones is a poet, educator, cultural strategist and cultural  producer from Saint Paul, Minnesota. She has performed poetry in venues throughout the United States. Her work can be found in A Moment of Silence (Tru  Ruts and The Playwrights Center, 2020), the Minnesota Humanities Center’s anthology entitled, Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2015) and more. 

She has been awarded fellowships from the Arts Matters Foundation, Springboard  for the Arts, the Intercultural Leadership Institute, and more. Former Director of the  Brave New Voices international youth poetry slam festival, her work explores the  ways in which art can function as a tool for social transformation, liberation and  education. Jones has always had a passion for bridging arts & culture, civic  engagement and youth development. For more on her personal praxis, see Jones’  TEDxMinneapolis Talk on Spoken Word as a Radical Practice of Freedom.

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