“Or Does it Explode” Family Ties: On Lorraine Hansberry, How Art Impacts Policy and Connects with the Past and Inspires the Future
The Ottoman evokes the one Lorraine sat on in Robert Kennedy’s living room while educating him on civil rights.
Photo by Brooke Ross Photography
Andrea Jenkins made history in 2017 as the first Black, openly Trans woman to be elected to political office in the United States. A longtime advocate for Transgender and non-binary rights, Jenkins is a celebrated poet and oral historian. Jenkins, a native Chicagoan, grew up in the tumultuous 1960’s immersed in the city’s emerging Black Arts Movement, a Black nationalist movement expressed through the arts. Jenkins uses her writings to tell her truth. Prior to being elected, she was the Oral Historian for the Transgender Oral History Project at the University of Minnesota. She is currently President of the Minneapolis City Council and teaches poetry at MCAD.
In 2022 Andrea has been honored by the Minnesota Public Health Association, a “Health Equity Leadership Award”, The Duke University, “Pauli Murray Leadership Award”, and the National Black Justice Coalition, “Wise Women Award”
RECORDED BY THE AUTHOR.
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