The East Side Freedom Library invites you to “Sustaining the Struggle: A Conversation Between Dr. Josie Johnson and Arleta Little” on Saturday, December 9, 1:00PM-2:30PM​, @ East Side Freedom Library.

Dr. Josie Johnson and Arleta Little have been engaged in a lengthy process of recalling, reconstructing, and documenting Dr. Johnson’s lifework in the struggles for racial and human justice.  The East Side Freedom Library is honored to provide you with an opportunity to hear them share what they’ve been discovering and learning, and for you to ask some questions of  your own. Jayanthi Kyle will open the program with song.

Dr. Josie Johnson has played an active role in the civil rights movement since her teenage years, when she and her father gathered signatures on an anti-poll tax petition in her hometown. She earned a B.A. in Sociology at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and an M.A. and Ed.D at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Simi-retired she founded Josie Robinson Johnson and Associates in 1996. She has served as a Minneapolis Institute of Arts trustee, a Minnesota Medical Foundation trustee and sits on the advisory board of the Harriet Tubman Center. She is a recipient of the Committed to the Vision Award from the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights and the African American Community Endowment Fund Award. The University of Minnesota created The Josie R. Johnson Human Rights and Social Justice Award in 1997. (http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/josie-johnson-committed-educator-and-activist)

Arleta Little joined McKnight Foundation in 2014 and serves as a program officer in the Arts program and as director of the McKnight Artist Fellowships Program. In her tenure, Arleta has built community with McKnight’s fellowships program partners and defined a research-based rationale for increasing the program’s fellowship support for working artists. Prior to working in philanthropy, Arleta served as the executive director of the Givens Foundation for African American Literature and worked for over 15 years as an organizational development consultant providing strategic planning, program evaluation, and grant writing services to organizations in Minnesota. She is also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, a Creative Community Leadership Institute fellow, and a published poet.(https://www.mcknight.org/about-us/staff-info/arleta-little)

Jayanthi Kyle is an archivist singer collecting songs that speak to her struggle and empowerment and ability to be, change, and move forward while honoring the unremembered changers and movers of yore. She sings for people passing worlds(new or old or hardly used—meaning births and children, hospice and funerals) and has the heart of a mother.  (Mother to 9& 8year old boys and a 4 year old girl.)

Free and Open to All.

East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106. [email protected]   and   651-230-3294