Franklin & Marshall College

In addition, Kemp will present a Sunday, Jan. 25  "Ancestors Workshop" at 5 p.m. that incorporates yoga, creative writing and meditation. The workshop will take place in the Women's Center, located on the ground level of the Steinman College Center.  Admission is free, but space is limited. No experience in writing or yoga necessary.  Please bring a mat, blanket, and journal.

She will also perform "Show Me the Franklins" at 10 a.m. on Jan. 19 at the James Street Mennonite Church, with an introduction by Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray, and then again at 6:30 p.m. at the Washington Friends Meeting in Washington, D.C., in honor of the Barack Obama presidential Inauguration.

Finally, Kemp will present an encore performance of "Show Me the Franklins" at 7 p.m. at the Bright Side Opportunities Center located at 515 Hershey Avenue. in Lancaster, Pa.

This unique performance weaves together waiting worship, yoga, ritual, and theater to recover the stories and perspectives of Benjamin Franklin's African contemporaries. Set in the context of a lecture on Benjamin Franklin and slavery, this play explores the limits of Franklin's abolitionism and the importance of claiming all of our ancestors of all races, especially those erased from the historical record.

Running about an hour, the performance is appropriate for children eight and older. Meticulously researched, "Show Me the Franklins!" has been awarded a Pennsylvania Humanities Council grant, presented at the National Black Theatre Festival, and work-shopped at the Z Space in San Francisco.

Kemp blends activism and spirituality, theatre arts and history. A survivor of the New York City foster care system, Kemp has been a lifelong advocate and organizer of movements for racial justice and equality since her first anti-apartheid march in 1983. She graduated from Stanford University where she helped to lead the Stanford out of South Africa divestment movement and the successful struggle to revamp the University's Eurocentric humanities requirement. Awarded Stanford's prestigious Gardner Fellowship for Public Service, Dr. Kemp apprenticed with the Honorable Maxine Waters and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. For her work in organizing statewide student movements, including a 10,000 strong March on Sacramento, Calif., for educational rights, Rainbow/PUSH awarded Kemp their 1989 Citizenship Award. Subsequently Kemp served on the Steering Committee of the National Black Assembly chaired by the Hon. Dick Hatcher.

An erstwhile poet and playwright, Kemp left politics to pursue a doctoral degree in Performance Studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. After two years of doctoral work, Dr. Kemp traveled to South Africa to work with the Ford Foundation where she consulted and co-authored on a report on the complex and dynamic women's movements during the transition to democracy. While in South Africa Dr. Kemp also consulted with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights South African Elections project which hosted U.S. elections observers. Coordinating assignments and real time report-ins, Dr. Kemp also experienced Nelson Mandela's joyful victory dance when the ANC swept the national elections.

Enriched by her South Africa experiences, Dr. Kemp completed her dissertation on African American and South African ties in the 1920s and 1930s. She has since published articles about South African politics as performance and performed a one-woman show on being Black but not African in South Africa.

Kemp has been a visiting professor of American and Africana Studies at Franklin & Marshall. In addition to creating dynamic interactive performances about the legacy of slavery, Dr. Kemp also consults with organizations and individuals seeking to make a strategic impact on the movement for racial justice.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: MARCY DUBROFF (717) 291-3837
E-MAIL: MARCY.DUBROFF@FANDM.EDU
WEB: HTTP://WWW.FANDM.EDU