BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Renowned scholar and activist Menah Pratt-Clarke will visit Illinois Wesleyan University while on a tour for her new book “Blackwildgirl: A Writer’s Journey to Take Back Her Superpower.”
Pratt-Clarke will be at IWU from 4-6 p.m. on Friday, April 26 in Young Main Lounge at the Memorial Center. Copies of her new book may be purchased and signed at the event, which is free and open to the public. Register here to attend the event.
“This is the story of a little Black girl who knew she was a queen and, in her innocence, shared her knowledge too soon. The world dethroned her, burying her spirit, expecting to asphyxiate her. But the world didn’t know that she was a seed,” Pratt-Clarke said of the memoir that chronicles her experiences as a Black girl and journey as a Black woman in America.
Pratt-Clarke serves as Vice President of Strategic Affairs and Diversity and Professor of Education at Virginia Tech and is a board member and award winner with the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education.
She is a founding member of the Pratt Music Foundation, which promotes classical music education for youth in McLean County. The foundation provides scholarships for lessons at Illinois Wesleyan University's Music Preparatory Program. It was founded in honor of her father Theodore Pratt, a nuclear physicist with a love for classical music. Mildred Pratt, her mother, was one of the founders and champions of the Bloomington-Normal Black History Project. Her brother Awadagin is a concert violinist, pianist, conductor and Grammy nominee who received an honorary doctorate from Illinois Wesleyan University after delivering the commencement address in 2012.
“She and her brother maintain endowed scholarships at ISU and Illinois Wesleyan and are very beloved in this community," said IWU Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Dakesa Piña, who helped orchestrate the campus visit through a partnership with ISU and the Bloomington-Normal Black History Project.