In honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month and National Coming Out Day, Winona State University will host guest speaker Alexis Pauline Gumbs Tuesday, Oct. 14.
Gumbs will present “Because I Know the Truth: Ending Sexual Violence” at noon Oct. 14 in the Student Activity Center, Kryzsko Commons. Later that day, Gumbs will present “Mobile Homecoming: Amplifying Generations of Black LGBTQ Brilliance” at 7 p.m. in the Student Activity Center.
In “Because I Know the Truth: Ending Sexual Violence, ” Gumbs will discuss her firsthand experiences as a survivor of sexual violence on her college campus and draw on the legacy of black feminist, anti-rape activist June Jordan.
In “Mobile Homecoming: Amplifying Generations of Black LGBTQ Brilliance,” Gumbs will provide a multi-media presentation constructed from hundreds of interviews with black LGBTQ visionaries.
Gumbs describes herself as a “queer black troublemaker and black feminist love evangelist.” She received her Ph.D. in English, African and African-American Studies and Women and Gender Studies from Duke University. At the age of 19, she founded Broken Beautiful Press, a grassroots publishing initiative that has published numerous educational magazines, poetry collections, transformative workbooks and online projects. Gumbs also founded the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist, a transmedia community school, and is co-creator of the Mobile Homecoming Project, a national experimental collection of generations of black LGBTQ brilliance with her partner Julia Roxanne Wallace.
Gumbs was named one of UTNE Reader’s 50 Visionaries Transforming the World in 2009, was awarded a Too Sexy for 501-C3 trophy in 2011, and was one of Advocate magazine’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2012.
For more information, contact Alexander Hines, Director of Inclusion and Diversity, atAHines@winona.edu.
