Meet the St. Paul Bush Fellow working to boost literacy and close opportunity gaps

Artika Tyner is a civil rights attorney, law professor and award-winning children's book author who as a child immersed herself in books in order to change her personal story. After growing up surrounded by incarcerated family members, she became a first-generation college student, then a lawyer and, now, an educator.

One of five people from St. Paul recently awarded a Bush Foundation fellowship, Tyner seeks to melt away racial disparities — including those that exist in incarceration — by focusing on boosting literacy. Along the way, Tyner hopes to tap other Bush fellows to form a network that builds racial equity.

Eye On St. Paul recently interviewed Tyner and other St. Paul Bush Fellows to learn more about what they hope to accomplish in the next year.

This interview has been edited for length.

Q: Where are you from?

A: St. Paul. I grew up in the Rondo community, one of five generations to live in Rondo.

Q: Where did you go to school?

A: Highland Park, in the Chinese immersion program. I graduated in 1999. Then Hamline University. I graduated in three years. I wanted to be a high school English teacher, but I decided on the law while student teaching — to address some of the social issues I was seeing in the classroom. I was in the third class at [the University of] St. Thomas law school.

Q: On what area of the law do you focus?

A: Civil rights law. I am a full-time law professor and I work on cases pro bono and do research and policy work with my students. Right now, we are working on project looking at the racial wealth gap. For so long we've admired the problem and not looked at what were some of the contributing factors, such as homeownership.

The most recent article I wrote was on the impact of mass incarceration, that we've lost the earning years in a lot of communities. But yet we were sending all of our money, and I can say this personally, into the prison system and not getting anything out.

And I've worked collaboratively with communities all over the nation on racial removal, because the Federal Highway Act of 1956 just didn't impact us [in Rondo], ... there are nearly 1,000 cases documented across the nation.

Q: Did racism play a role in placing the freeway system, in Rondo and elsewhere?

A: I [only] saw Rondo when I was growing up. But as I researched the issue across the nation [in places like Tulsa, Okla., Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Baltimore, Md.], you would be denying facts [if you denied] a pattern of open discrimination.

It still happens today, this disregard, that the Black community or any other marginalized community is the pathway of least resistance. This is why I became an attorney. To learn the language of power. I knew if I became well-versed, I could have an impact on our community.

Q: What do you hope to do with this fellowship?

A: I think the most important thing is the actual mission of the fellowship, of investing in my leadership. I've been in academia most of my professional life. And if I want to really get to the root causes and bring forth meaningful change as it relates to civil rights, I need more opportunities to engage community.

Q: How do you do that?

A: Strengthen my communication skills. Also, I plan on building a network of other people who are passionate about addressing the literacy gap and civil rights issues. And the reason why I say "the literacy gap" is because far too many of my clients learn to read while in prison.

One in four American children are not reading at grade level by fourth grade. If they're not reading at grade level by fourth grade, they are four times more likely to drop out of school, 3 1/2 times more likely to be arrested.

So, one of the outcomes I want to experience is to build a national consortium of others who are committed to addressing this literacy gap in real time.

Q: How do you begin to tackle such a big problem?

A: First of all, [the Bush Fellows] have one asset right away. We have each other. We're a cohort. It will be in collaborating and strategizing about ideas together, both individually and collectively.

I agree the issues seem too big to solve. But at the same time ... the last time I was at Lino Lakes [prison] for instance, how is it that nearly everybody there is a Black man? [They could have been] my grandpa, my brother, my cousin … could have been my child. So, I don't have time to think about the size of the problem. I better get to work.

Q: How long are you taking for your sabbatical?

A: I chose 24 months.

Q: At the end of 24 months, what's different? What do you see?

A: It sounds cliché, but self-care. Health and wellness. Work-life balance. One of the things I hope to be able to do is to return back to Africa. I'd like to have the opportunity to engage in the language and culture, meet with some of the elders. And, as I look into this crystal ball, now we have an extensive issue and we've built this consortium, how do we address literacy and ending mass incarceration?

Q: Why is self-care important?

A: I'm embarrassed to say I work 18-hour days. Look at the life of Booker T. Washington or any of these great civil rights leaders — what do they do? They work and they work and they work. You have to find a way to do the work, but also live.