The 2025 Sankofa Event & Series: Inspiring change through engaging discussion and reflection

Theme: Defeating Racism in the 21st Century: Ancestral Solutions for our Future

Our 2025 theme explores the current climate in the US and world and the condition of the Black/African community within it? How do we understand what is going in the context of our history? How do address today’s issues which echo our past challenges as an African/Black people? What solutions can we derive from our ancestors who have lived and struggled in similar conditions and circumstances?

Date

Saturday November 8th, 2025

4:00 pm-7:00 pm

Location

Penumbra Theater/Hallie Q. Brown
270 Kent Street St. Paul, MN 55104

Featuring

Voice of Culture, Opening Rhythms

Lenora Magee, Spoken Word

Dr. Daniel Black, Keynote Speaker

T. Mychael Rambo as Master of Ceremonies

Nanny’s Jamaican Kitchen, Caterer

The Evening

• Social & Community Time

• Entertainment & Food

• Keynote

• Tabletop Discussions facilitated by our young people.

• Call to Action

• Free Publication

2025 Publication of Focus:

The 30th Anniversary of Dr. Mahmoud El-Kati’s classic and profound work The Myth of Race/The Reality of Racism

In celebration of the 30th Anniversary release of Mahmoud El-Kati’s The Myth of Race/The Reality of Racism, In Black Ink is reprinting this critical book with a new forward by Dr. Resmaa Menakem. Mahmoud El-Kati, a historian who taught at Macalester College and the University of Minnesota, lays down the fundamental construct and history of race. He eloquently sheds light on the pseudoscientific underpinnings that has been built into the fabric of this nation - the United States of America. El-Kati warns that the lack of social justice for the second oldest population in the U.S - people of African descent - is the achilles heel of this great nation. His critical analysis of race, racism and the doctrine of white supremacy provide profound insight into the destruction caused to human dignity and the impact on society's growth.

All in-person participants get a courtesy copy of this publication.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Keynote Speaker:

Dr. Daniel Black, Clark Atlanta University
Author, Professor, Consultant, Mentor

Dr. Daniel Black is a 30-year professor of African American Studies at Clark Atlanta University. He is also an award-winning novelist, activist, mentor and public speaker. His published works include They Tell Me of Home, The Sacred Place, Perfect Peace, Twelve Gates to the City, The Coming, Listen to the Lambs, Don’t Cry for Me, Black on Black, and Isaac’s Song. In 2014, he won the Distinguished Writer’s Award from the Mid-Atlantic Writer’s Association. The Go On Girl! National Book Club named him “Author of the Year” in 2011 for his best-selling novel Perfect Peace. Perfect Peace was also chosen as the 2014 selection for “If All Arkansas Read the Same Book” by the Arkansas Center for the Book at the Arkansas State Library. The novel has been reprinted more than ten times and is being heralded as an American literary classic. Dr. Black has been nominated (three times) for the Townsend Literary Prize, the Ernest J. Gaines Award, the Ferro-Grumbley Literary Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, he Georgia Author of the Year Prize, and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

T. Mychael Rambo

Actor, Author, Community Organizer

T. Mychael Rambo is a 3-time Mid-West Emmy Award winning actor, vocalist, arts educator, author, community organizer, and public speaker, who has made an indelible mark here in the Twin Cities performing principal roles on virtually every main stage on both sides of the Mississippi. Nationally and internationally his stage credits include Carnegie Hall and performances abroad in Africa, Europe and South America. He has appeared in local and national television commercials, feature films, HBO mini-series and other television programming. T. Mychael has embarked on a new project. His most recent endeavor(s) have been a collaboration with New York Times Best Selling Author, Resmaa Menakem to co-author, a companion children’s book to Mr. Menakem’s book “My Grandmother’s Hands” entitled “The Stories from My Grandmother’s Hands.” Rambo, is also an accomplished auctioneer/emcee, recording artist, residency artist and affiliate professor in the College of ‪Liberal Arts, Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Organized by In Black Ink (IBI)

IBI is a state-wide, grassroots, non-profit organization that creates spaces where the intergenerational stories about Minnesotans of African heritage can be shared, documented, and archived. IBI provides publishing arts initiatives and opportunities to communities that have been disenfranchised historically and continue to be presently.

This event is free & open to the public.

Questions? Contact us at info@inblackink.org or (651)231-6604

Sponsors and Partners:

Hallie Q Brown Community Center

Penumbra Theater

Martin Luther King Jr. Program - University of Minnesota College of Liberals Arts

Sankofa: Inspiring change through engaging discussion & reflection