Sowing seeds

• Author: Amanda Robert
• Pages: 63-64

ensuring that all children have equal

opportunities.

At the same time, she developed

an interest in the criminal justice

system. She recognized how the war

on drugs a ected her community

through the 1970s, and she wanted

to help address the problem of mass

incarceration.

“Rondo was the training ground;

the educational system was the pas-

sion that hit my heart; and the crimi-

nal justice system was just up close

and personal to me,” Tyner says. “I

saw the disproportionate impact on

communities of color, disenfran-

chisement of folks and, basically,

the creation of a new second-class

citizenship.”

PAYING IT FORWARD

Tyner created the Planting People

Growing Justice

Leadership Institute—a

nonprofi t organization

in St. Paul that seeks to

inspire social change

through education,

training and commu-

nity outreach—in 2017.

She had graduated

from the University

SOWING SEEDS

Artika Tyner uses education to nurture social change

By Amanda Robert

A trio of early infl uences led Arti-

ka Tyner to what she calls her life

mission—promoting literacy, train-

ing the next generation of leaders

and advancing diversity and inclu-

sion as the founder of the Planting

People Growing Justice Leadership

Institute.

She grew up in Rondo, a historic

neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota,

that had a thriving African American

community until the construction

of Interstate 94 cut it in half in the

1960s. She saw families lose their

homes and businesses shut down,

and she decided to become an attor-

ney to fi ght for social justice.

Before Tyner found the law,

she found education. She consid-

ered following in her favorite high

school English teacher’s footsteps

but was devastated when she real-

ized there were racial disparities in

the classroom. She wanted her

work to include

of St. Thomas School of Law in

Minneapolis in 2006 and was work-

ing as the school’s associate vice

president for diversity and inclusion

when she sent a friend data about

illiteracy rates in prison.

Through her work with the

Community Justice Project, a civil

rights clinic at the law school, she

met clients with the same story: They

learned how to read in prison. The

data confi rmed her suspicion, she

says. Depending on the study, 60%

to 80% of inmates were illiterate.

Tyner not only wanted her non-

profi t to address the correlation

JULY-AUGUST 2019 ABA JOURNAL || 63

PHOTOS BY MIKE EKERN, UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS, PLANTING PEOPLE GROWING JUSTICE PRESS

your A b a

EDITED BY LEE RAWLES

LEE.RAWLES@AMERICANBAR.ORG

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