Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story Educates and Builds Community in a Sweet Way

In 1996, Rose McGee wrote Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story to help educate people on a piece of difficult, but important history that was, at the time, little known. In the 28 years since, McGee has taken her play to cities across Minnesota and multiple states, building incredible relationships with her cast, crew, and audience members. Each year, a conversation between the cast and audience after the performance helps McGee understand how the script could be adapted and improved. Similarly, scenes or characters are customized to fit the availability of actors in a given year. McGee proudly claims that her grassroots theater company is always made up of dynamic talent. 

McGee’s organization Sweet Potato Comfort Pie started partnering with the Minnesota Humanities Center in 2021 on Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story’s production. This is the first year the play will be performed on the Northrop Carlson Family Stage and represents a major milestone in the play’s history.

The Liberal Arts Engagement Hub in the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) is a proud supporter of Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story. Hub residencies support yearlong collaborative partnerships between a community member or organization and a CLA faculty or staff member. In 2022, the nonprofit organization Sweet Potato Comfort Pie and Associate Professor Adam Bledsoe in the Department of Geography received a Hub residency for their project, entitled “Juneteenth Then and Now.” This multigenerational endeavor blended local and national history, performance art, and storytelling, culminating in a four-city tour of the play. This yearlong partnership with The Hub enabled the cast and crew of Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story to have unprecedented consistent rehearsal space and compensation for rehearsal time. The “Juneteenth Then and Now” residency received renewal funding through 2024, and this spring the play’s cast was once again able to rehearse in the Hub space located in Pillsbury Hall.

Kumbayah the Juneteenth Story’s playwright Rose McGee founded the nonprofit organization Sweet Potato Comfort Pie around what she called “baketivism”--using food culture and other creative forms of connection-building to create change. Baking and gifting a delicious pie, a sacred dessert of Black culture, is a simple, yet powerful act of kindness that brings people together for hope, healing, and conversation. This belief, with the help of McGee’s famously good sweet potato pie, is what drives the organization’s goal of advancing racial justice, healing damage caused by race-based trauma, and spreading joy throughout their community. 

Pie Ceremonies are also an important way that Sweet Potato Comfort Pie gives back to the community. Just before the Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story performance at Northrop, nineteen pies (representing the date of Juneteenth) will be given to community ambassadors whose work demonstrates the organization’s values. The photo exhibition Character Values: Upholding Our Beloved Community, honoring the community heroes and previous pie recipients, will also be on display in Memorial Hall on the day of the performance. 

A surprising number of Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story alumni have gone on to become barrier-breaking participants in Minnesota state politics. Coincidence? Maybe not! 

From the time that he was a freshman in high school until college, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter originated the role of Lewis. Mayor Carter’s mother Toni Carter, a veteran policy maker and first African American chair of Ramsey County’s Board of Commissioners, was the play’s first co-director. Her organization Arts-Us was an early producer of the play. 

Minnesota State Senator Bobby Joe Champion has also performed in Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story as director of the Grammy-nominated Excelsior Choir. Senator Champion has also been honored by Sweet Potato Comfort Pie for his key role in passing the bill allowing Juneteenth to become a state holiday. 

Playwright Rose McGee’s daughter Roslyn Harmon, who has been involved in the play since its inception and in a directing role for twenty years, is now the Mayor of Golden Valley. She is the first African American to hold that position.

Since becoming a national holiday in 2021, Juneteenth celebrations have grown in recognition and popularity; however, Rose McGee has been teaching the importance of Juneteenth’s history for many years prior. Sweet Potato Comfort Pie works with curriculum writers and education staff from local public schools with the goal of expanding and improving the quality of African American history being taught to the next generation. 

The Rose Service Scholar Cohort is a mutual-mentorship program that connects Black youth and elders. Elders learn about technology and gain connection while youth focus on areas of cultural identity, healing, and the arts. In addition, McGee has gathered youth for special pie bakes and cultural discussions at many schools and youth groups in MN and beyond. Read about how McGee and Sweet Potato Comfort Pie have spread healing from St. Peter, MN to Birmingham, AL.