In the Shadows of Our Ancestors

Walker Art Center Magazine

In the summer of 1974, two young artists rode their bikes through the streets of Minneapolis to attend an organizing meeting for African Americans working in communications. As the writer Soyini Guyton remembers it, there were about 40 people in attendance—journalists, photographers, graphic artists, and the like. The gathering led to the formation of the Twin Cities Black Communicators, an information and support group that served to broaden definitions of communications. “The group was good at bringing people together,” said Guyton, “and compiling a list of African American people working across the disciplines.” At the time she didn’t know, she would eventually marry one of the artists who had ridden his bike to the meeting—Seitu Jones—and years later they would collaborate with his cycling companion that day, the artist Ta-Coumba Aiken.