S3 E4 - MMC Kate Towle

Topic: The Sweet Burden: Grief as a Teacher to Weave Belonging

Bio: From her youngest days, Kate Towle has been an advocate for racial equity. As a child, she worked alongside her father and his Black friend to build a vibrant interracial community center in Michigan City, Indiana. She has organized and delivered numerous talks and workshops to help people start a racial and ethnic healing process where they live, work, and learn, often co-leading sessions with colleagues of color.

She lives in Minneapolis, MN, where racial tensions after the murder of George Floyd swept across the nation. She was the winner of the St. Paul Foundation’s Facing Race Idea Challenge in 2011 and wrote about her groundbreaking interracial work with high school students in Talking About Race: Alleviating the Fear (2013).

With her friend Rose McGee, she engaged young leaders in building the organization Sweet Potato Comfort Pie, which wraps cross-community dialogue and healing around baking and delivering the pies that symbolize caring and connection in Black culture.

Kate’s novel Sweet Burden of Crossing about interracial friendship has helped people of all ages speak candidly about their life experiences and biases in peer conversations, as discussed in a recent Democratic Visions interview. She helps communities see how sharing stories, service, and honoring each person’s gifts can heal longstanding divides. She co-leads the Weave Peace and Justice subcommunity