Teajai Travis, a descendent of Bermudian ancestors and Underground Railroad travellers, is the hereditary storyteller for his family and the multicultural community storyteller for the City of Windsor.

He will share his passion for holding, protecting, and preserving stories through his personal story journey in a presentation entitled “Being A Body of Stories: The Art Collecting and Carrying Community Stories,” on Tuesday, Nov. 7. Part of the speaker series in the course “Windsor’s Literary Culture”, the event is open to the University of Windsor community starting at 1 p.m. in room 53, Chrysler Hall South.

Travis launched the Missing from History #womenoftheundergroundrailroad project in 2015, which led to the naming of the Mary E. Bibb Park located in Sandwich Town. In 2018, he began working on Born Enslaved: A Freedom Story, and in 2019 he presented a work titled Growing Up Mixed: An American Nightmare.

Currently Travis is researching the stories of his ancestral roots in Bermuda and using the research as a tool to present an afro narrative of life on the island for Black islanders from 1609 to 1833. Executive director of Artcite Inc and an arts educator with Arts Can Teach, he founded Sacred Story Studio and launched A Blaze of Story, a monthly storytelling event hosted at Café Amor.