Embracing Our Roots:Rooted & Rising with Dr. Haki Madhubuti & Chaun Webster

Join Dr. Haki Madhubuti and Chaun Webster in a conversation about self-determination in Black writing, publishing and distribution. Elder Madhubuti a widely published author and poet, and is the founder of Third World Press, the oldest Black Publishing house in the world. Chaun Webster is also a widely published poet and graphic artist. This event continues a series of intergenerational discussions between African American creatives and is co-sponsored by More Than a Single Story, The Givens Collection of African American Literature and Life, and the In Black Ink publishing arts initiative. 

Location: Elmer L. Andersen Library ( Givens Conference Suite 120 )

  222 21st Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Panelist Bios:

Haki R. Madhubuti is an award winning poet, author, and educator. Widely regarded as one of the architects of the Black Arts Movement (BAM), he is the founder and publisher of Chicago's Third World Press, the oldest independent Black book publishing company in the world (1967).  Madhubuti holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has authored more than 37 books and has been awarded five Honorary degrees. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Chicago State University where he founded and directed the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing. His poetry and teaching have been recognized by numerous awards, most recently the “Living in her Legacy Lifetime Achievement Award” given by the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center in recognition of his lifetime of service and exemplary art activism.   

Chaun Webster is a poet and graphic designer living in Minneapolis whose work is attempting to put pressure on the spatial and temporal limitations of writing, of the english language, as a way to demonstrate its incapacity for describing blackness outside of a regime of death and dying. Webster’s books include, Gentry!fication: or the scene of the crime (Noemi Press, 2018), and Wail Song: wading in the water at the end of the world, (Black Ocean Press, 2023).  Both books were awarded the Minnesota Book Award for Poetry.

Host or Publisher More Than a Single Story