Episode 16 With Tami Winfrey Harris

Tamara Winfrey Harris is an American author, columnist and speaker.  She is currently Vice President of Community Leadership and Effective Philanthropy at Central Indiana Community Foundation.  With a B.A. in Journalism from The Greenlee School at Iowa State University, Tami has developed a national reputation for writing about the intersection of race, culture and gender.  She writes a regular column entitled “Some of Us Are Brave” for Bitch Media.  She voices her social analysis and critiques on several other media outlets including NPR’s “Weekend Edition” and Janet Mock’s “So Popular” on MSNBC.com.  Tami has also published a number of pieces in MS. Magazine.  Tami’s first book, “The Sisters are Alright:  Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America” was published in 2015.  In this book, Tami celebrates Black women while simultaneously challenging the stereotypes that American culture has tried to saddled us with.  The books lays out how these stereotypes are damaging and how they play out in our daily functioning.  She courageously delves into how Black bodies are viewed in the United States and why. She has received a number of awards and accolades for this ground breaking work including the Phyllis Wheatley Book Award at The Harlem Book Festival.  She, along with columnist Rochelle Riley and writer DeeshaPhilyaw, is especially proud of having launched “Letters to Black Girls Project.” The goal of this endeavor is to support and inspire Black girls through feminist, anti-racist, body positive, LGBTQ+ positive, anti-respectability politics and pro-Black letters from Black women.This project is designed to counteract the assault on black bodies and to pour into Black girls that they are dynamic and are capable of accomplishing anything. Tami has stated, “Maligning Black women regardless of our personal collective truth is part of American’s DNA.”Tami also has created and facilitates the Black Women’s Writing Society, which meets monthly at the Center for Black Literature and Culture at the Indianapolis Central Library.  Tami narrated “The Journey of the Middle Passage” written by the best-selling author of the book “Wench” written by Dolen Perkins-Valdes.  It is in this work that you will experience the harrowing journey of the first enslaved Africans to Land in America.Tami shares in this episode some of the desires she plans to pursue in the future, which includes becoming a trained Yoga Instructor for Black Bodies.  She also has a number of book topics floating around in her consciousness that she plans to bring to fruition.  Tami can be contacted through her website www.tamarawinfreyharris.com