“We Were Movement People First”: Teaching Writing through Relationship and Struggle

We interviewed Minnie Bruce around her dining table in Syracuse, NY in December 2019. In this excerpt from the interview, we share how Minnie Bruce learned to teach through organizing; how her classroom shifted us from parallel learners to siblings in the struggle; and how she joined us as our coconspirator, friend, and mentor after her retirement. She touches on how much rural Alabama-particularly the Cahaba River and the creatures that inhabit it-shaped her understanding of land, liberation, and creative practice. Learning from Minnie Bruce, both in college classrooms and in community organizing spaces, revealed to us how inseparable movement principles are from pedagogy.