How Can We Breathe: The Artists and Meaning-Makers
Thursday, November 5
Free
In the third virtual community circle of the Minnesota Humanities Center’s How Can We Breathe series, Artists and Meaning-Makers will discuss their role in shaping public dialogue after crisis events, specifically the murder of George Floyd. Learn how artists respond to crises, influence landscapes, drive narratives, and inform the public. Together we will address whose work is privileged, who “owns” public art work, and how is it preserved/memorialized.
Participants will be called to join this virtual space to learn, understand, and share. This conversation, centered on the African American experience, will identify strategies and resources advocates and allies for a racially just society can use to ensure that African Americans are fully empowered within our democracy.
Sweet Potato Comfort Pie®, a Minnesota grassroots organization advocating for racial justice, will facilitate the conversations and collaborate with individuals and organizations in several Minnesota cities during the virtual series to provide comfort pies and build community.
We look forward to seeing you at this event and having you join us for future conversations with Policymakers and Community in December.
Registration Questions: registration@mnhum.org
Partnership
Sweet Potato Comfort Pie ®, a Minnesota grassroots organization advocating for racial justice, will facilitate these conversations and collaborate with individuals and organizations in several Minnesota cities during the virtual series to provide Sweet Potato Comfort Pie ® and build community.
Rose McGee is a sweet potato pie philanthropist and creator of the Sweet Potato Comfort Pie ® approach – a catalyst for caring and building community. It was 2014 during the racial disturbance in Ferguson, Missouri, when Rose felt compelled to bake 30 pies, loaded them into her car and drove to Ferguson to offer comfort. Upon returning home to Golden Valley, she felt a deeper calling to get something done right here at home. Since then, Sweet Potato Comfort Pie ® has become a cornerstone service approach during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday weekend when Rose, along with dozens of volunteers of all ages and ethnicities, bake the number of pies Dr. King’s age would have been. Then, hundreds of community members convene in tough conversations around race and equity. Among themselves, the participants determine who to gift the 91 pies (Dr. King’s Age in 2020) and distribute them to individuals and organizations throughout the community as a symbol of concern or celebration.
Since the murder of George Floyd, her immediate response by leading people (virtually) across the country in making sweet potato pies so viewers would then gift the pies to community and first responders, caught national and international attention as she was interviewed by NBC Nightly News, Huffington Post, Buzz Feed, Access Hollywood, People Magazine, numerous others including, New Zealand, Japan and the upcoming October Reader’s Digest October November GuidePost.
Rose is a Humanities Officer with the Minnesota Humanities Center and a story circle practitioner. She is a member of Women Who Really Cook, the Women’s Business Development Center, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and one of the 2018 Minnesota Super Bowl LII Businesses. The 2018 and 2019 Charlie Awards Nominee resides in Golden Valley where in June 2017 she was named “Citizen of The Year” and in December 2018 was presented the “Bill Hobbs Human Rights Award” by the Human Rights Commission and Golden Valley City Council. In April 2019 she was awarded Bush Foundation’s prestigious Bush Fellowship recognized as a Minnesota 50 Over 50. She is featured in the PBS documentary, A Few Good Pie Places, author of the books, Story Circle Stories, Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story and has a TEDx Talk on The Power of Pie. In spring of 2021, her children’s book, Can’t Nobody Make a Sweet Potato Pie Like Our Mama, will be released by Minnesota Historical Society Press.
