Dr. Artika Tyner’s love of teaching dates back well into her childhood. The fifth generation Rondo native remembers lining up her Barbie dolls in her family home and teaching them how to read and write. As a teenager, Tyner would facilitate STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) workshops and classes for young people at the Science Museum of Minnesota.
Tyner would go on to pursue her passion for education at Hamline University, where she would study to become an English teacher. Upon realizing the systemic issues that caused many Black children to struggle academically, she decided to pursue a career in law.
“I knew that if I could understand the language of the law and become well-versed in the law, that’s where the real power was,” she stated.
She shared how the decision to pivot toward law was influenced by the moment she heard about the correlation between illiteracy and incarceration. Some studies have shown that 60 to 80 percent of individuals behind bars are illiterate depending on their location and juvenile status.
Tyner had gone on to become a civil rights attorney and founded the Center on Race, Leadership and Social Justice at St. Thomas Law School where she also worked for 17 years.
Launching an organization and pursuing a solution
While she furthered her efforts to craft policy and influence change through academia, Tyner continued to have a vested interest in young people and their education. During a passionate conversation with friends on the issues plaguing young people, she and her peers decided that there was an opportunity for them to launch a nonprofit organization to help address these challenges.
Tyner founded the Planting People Growing Justice Institute in 2014 to help increase the literacy rates for children of color by providing them with culturally relevant books to read. Following her conversation with friends, she restructured the organization into a nonprofit with the same goal.
Their efforts were recognized nationally by entities such as the Walmart Foundation, which helped validate their efforts and reaffirm that they were headed in the right direction. To date, the nonprofit has donated over 24,000 books to children.
Addressing disparities in the Twin Cities
Minnesota is often cited as one of the leading states when it comes to racial disparities between white and Black residents, especially in the area of education. According to the Minnesota Department of Education, 31 percent of Black students are at or exceed the grade level standards in reading. White students in comparison are at 58 percent.
Tyner believes that the numbers point to a reality of two experiences playing out in real time. “It’s a tale of two cities when it comes to looking at data around quality of life,” she said.
“We know that Minnesota has one of the best educational systems, but it’s not experienced for those who are low-income and for those who come from diverse backgrounds, in particular the African American community.”
Tyner believes that although some might see this gap as a challenge, she sees it as an opportunity to create change. She shared how she utilizes Department of Education data to find schools struggling with early learning and literacy and help create a culture that fosters a love of reading and learning outside of the classroom.
“Am I going to wait for somebody else to figure that out? Absolutely not,” she stated. “I’m working with private-public partnerships, whatever it takes to ensure our babies are uplifted, protected and empowered on their educational journey.”
Inspiring through cultural representation
Tyner aims to teach resiliency and cultivate power and a cultural understanding through the works she supports with Planting People Growing Justice Press and Bookstore. She herself has authored dozens of books that cover topics around history, science and ancestry.
“When I think about what we’ve been able to do, to really radically transform the publishing industry where you’re more likely to see a black dog or black bear on the cover of a book than a Black boy or Black girl,” she said.
When Tyner first attempted to go the traditional publishing route she was told that Black people don’t read, and if they did they didn’t have the disposable income to purchase those books.
Tyner believed that the Black purchasing power, set to reach roughly $2 trillion within the decade, easily debunked the belief that Black people did not have the disposable income to purchase books written by Black authors, but that it was imperative for there to be the demand. When launching her organization she made the commitment to train 100 Black authors within the next 10 years.
They’ve already been able to train 66 authors since that time. The next step for Tyner and her organization is to increase the number of Black illustrators in the industry to help create more work.
She’s received distribution partnership from Lerner Publishing, which aims to scale their releases and place their titles in independent bookstores, libraries, and schools around the country. Tyner was also selected as a judge’s choice honoree for the Hy-Vee Opportunity Summit, motivating her to seek more retail partnerships.
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