The Ubuntu Storytellers Present: "To Be Young, Gifted and Black"

 A personal narrative story concert performed by professional black and brown story artists of Ubuntu Storytellers.

This sixty-minute oral story concert commemorates the spirit of playwright, Lorraine Hansberry, by sharing true stories of the journey of black and brown people in America. These artists will share personal stories of the struggles, the victories and the lived spaces in between.

Ms. Hansberry coined the phrase “to be young gifted and black” when addressing a group of young, black students who had won a writing contest.

This show has been curated to celebrate this trailblazing artist in her birth month, May.

Pianist and Songstress, Nina Simone, captured by the depth and inspiration of the phrase, immortalized it by writing and performing a song so entitled in honor of her friend.

Denise Keyes Page, a Madison resident, founder of and co-creator with The Ubuntu Storytellers says she was given personal narrative as a vehicle to bring heart to a problem to be solved by heads and hands. “We can, by listening to story, hear with our hearts, that which our head sometimes rejects,” she says.

“People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience.”

― Chinua Achebe, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra.

Please sign up for this one-of-a-kind event below.