Racial Diversity Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Diversity Speaker Promotes Advocacy Through Art, Theater In The Ohio River Valley

As part of our “Returning Home” series, David talks with Carmen Mitzi Sinnott about her decision to come back to Appalachia after years of delivering keynote performances, workshops, and classes around the world.

Sinnott is a mixed race women from the region who uses her background as an artist and educator to help others discuss equity and identity, through her company, “All Here Together Productions”.

Presently, Sinnott and “ALL Here Together Productions” are working on a project to bring artists together from around the nation to paint murals in Huntington’s Fairfield district. The murals are planned to be painted in the spring of 2022.

The transcript below is from the original broadcast. It has been lightly edited for clarity.

Mitzi: So I had already been traveling to train with dance masters in Columbus, Ohio, so as a high schooler, I was driving myself to Columbus, Ohio twice a week. It was pretty clear at that point, what I wanted to achieve, I wanted to become a professional dancer. Both my parents are successful performing artists, Appalachian successful performing artists. And both of them have aspirations of doing more work outside of here. So when I decided at 16, that was the moment I was like, Okay, I really want to do this professionally. Russell High School in Russell, Kentucky actually take their senior class for a week to New York City and Washington DC. The teachers were so amazing, they let me take dance class outside of the tour that was scheduled.

David Adkins: What made you change your career from a Dancer to an educator?

Mitzi: For a year I was like Mom, I want to go to Los Angeles. I wanna do Music Videos. I moved to Los Angeles for a year after one year at F-I-T. I realized at that point, there were jobs available for dance teachers in public schools in Manhattan. The position of director of the extended day program at the school of Future became available. And I had worked there for a year part time, their director, Samantha Vincent, who, by the way, is Vin Diesel’s sister, she was like, “Mitzi, I think you could be the next director. I’m leaving to go to Las Angeles.”

David Adkins: What motivated you to start All Here Together Productions, and what motivated you to write the play Snapshot, which is based on your father and your life in Appalachia?

Mitzi: The protests in New York City about the U.S’s invasion in Iraq, it really instigated something in me, where I was already thinking about war, and the ridiculousness of war and not having a real purpose other than destroying families, communities, nations.

So All Here Together Productions expanded to community work, and doing this sort of self reflective, and always thinking about culture, race, ethnicity, and, you know, violent. My story, using it as a way to sound off about who we are, where do we want to be in the future? Like, what are our wounds? What are our pains, what might be holding us? And who do we want to become in the future. So all here together, productions started. Even more, it was always about national and international interactions, like from the start.

David Adkins: When did you start shifting your attention toward the region?

Mitzi: In early 2016, the United Way of the River Cities was beginning to plan their approach to a grant that was called Together We Rise. The United Way nationally wanted to see if their organizations could somehow have conversations around racism and dismantling racism because of them murder, the massacre in Charleston, South Carolina and the church there. So I was asked to come on Sandra Clements had recommended to Laura Gilliam.

They had, already, some community leaders coming together to design what a town hall might look like around racism. They were really nervous about having conversations about racism. What I’m suggesting we do is use art as a way to sort of break up the tension first, create a place for understanding and common ground before we start to get into the conversation. And so I was able to apply that All Here Together style to what United Way river cities wanted to accomplish with their town hall.

So I wrote a short play that had community members performing and that’s how we opened up the first United Way of the River Cities, Together We Rise, with a play, the actors were sitting amongst the over 250 people that showed up in Huntington. I’m so grateful for Huntington, the folks in Huntington who have allowed me to be part of their processes.

Racial Justice Workshop to Take Place in Charleston Over Weekend

A three day racial justice workshop will kick-off Friday in Charleston.

American Friends Service Committee will host the West Virginia Freedom School, a three-day racial justice workshop that runs from Friday to Sunday at the East End Family Resource Center on the East End of Charleston. Students from Clay, Kanawha, Pocahontas, Marshall, Logan, Boone and Mingo counties will attend the meeting. They’ll combine with college students from Wesleyan University, Bridge ValleyTech and West Virginia State University.

The Freedom School is a national effort to educate young people about racism throughout the history of the United States. The hope is that by providing an understanding of the history that it will help students understand the current racial environment.

They’ll also discuss on-going efforts addressing poverty and racism, eliminating college debt and getting their peers registered to vote.

Summit Brings Racial Issues to Forefront

Over the past two days, dozens of people gathered in Charleston to have conversations organizers appropriately refer to as “racy.” The Summit on Race Matters in Appalachia pulled West Virginians from all areas, all backgrounds into the capital city to discuss how national racial tensions seen in places like Ferguson, Missouri, materialize right here at home.

The two day event included keynote speakers, the viewing of a documentary and breakout sessions that allowed participants to begin a dialogue on racial issues in their communities.

Dr. Gail Christopher, Vice President of Policy at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, gave one of the keynotes focused on the history of racial inequities and how it’s shaped different forms of bias.

“We are dealing with a belief system that has found its way into institutions and into structures and that belief is an absurd notion of a taxonomy that can be applied to human value,” Christopher said.

That taxonomy was formed four centuries ago, she said, when a hierarchy of human beings was created based on not just color, but also culture and lifestyles.

“You have this embedded belief that there are different human beings on the planet who behave differently, who think differently, but most painfully, who deserve to be treated differently,” she told the group.

Rev. Ron English helped organize the event and served as its moderator. He said if we don’t discuss the subconscious beliefs that the races are different and the mistakes of the past, we can’t move forward as a society.

“As Maya Angelo used to say, when you know better you do better and that’s what the whole conversation here is trying to get at,” he said.

English hoped the event encourages similar dialogues in communities across the state to help citizens recognize their differences and similarities in order to work together to better West Virginia.

The next step for English in the conversation: he and other church leaders in Charleston are planning a day long discussion of race relations with members of the Charleston Police Department. That is scheduled for December 8.