Past Event

Juneteenth: A Celebration of Resilience| Porch Stories – Tales of Slavery and Beyond

  • Saturday, June 19, 2021
  • 3:00pm - 4:00pm
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Type
Celebrations
Performances
Webcasts & Online

An internationally recognized storyteller, Jan Blake has been performing for over twenty-five years. Specializing in stories from Africa, the Caribbean, and Arabia, she has a well-earned reputation for dynamic and generous storytelling. For Juneteenth, Blake will share two stories – an Ethiopian tale entitled “Fire on the Mountain” followed by her interpretation of a short story by Charles Chesnutt entitled “Mary and Moses.” The program will provide multigenerational audiences with insights into the wisdom and strength of America’s post-slavery communities and the futures they faced. Daniel Black, Professor of African American Studies at Clark University, Atlanta, and a novelist, will interview Blake about how she weaves the African American experience into the body of her work largely focused upon the Diaspora.

Jan Blake has been performing worldwide for over twenty-five year and has a well-earned reputation for dynamic and generous storytelling. Blake received the biannual Thüringer Märchen Preis, awarded for service to storytelling. In 2012, she was the curator for Shakespeare’s Stories, an exhibition that explored themes of journey and identity, in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Daniel Black is an award-winning novelist and professor of African-American studies and English at Clark Atlanta University and at Morehouse College. His most recent works are The Coming, a first-person account of the trauma and triumph of Africans on a slave ship in the sixteenth century and Listen to the Lambs, which explores the lives of homeless people who find each other on the street.