Helen Miller–I Don’t Swim
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Helen Miller–I Don’t Swim
May 4 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Former Iowa House of Representatives member Helen Miller will read from her debut memoir, I Don’t Swim. Inspired by a question asked of her–Why don’t you swim with your family?–Helen examined her past and “considered that her parents’ and her inability to swim was related to something bigger: the history of Black Americans” (helenmillerauthor.com). Iowa State University president Dr. Wendy Wintersteen praises I Don’t Swim as “a special insight into navigating the tumultuous times of the 1960’s and 70’s and then witnessing the inauguration of Barack Obama forty years later,” while David Yepsen, former chief political reporter for the Des Moines Register, describes I Don’t Swim as “a warm story of Helen Miller’s life, played out against the backdrop of the nation’s civil rights struggles and of how a Black girl from Newark winds up as ranking member of the Iowa House Agriculture Committee.”
Helen Miller is a retired lawyer and state legislator. She was born in Newark, New Jersey, and earned a bachelor of arts degree from Howard University, a master’s degree from Our Lady of the Lake University, and a Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center. She served as a member of the Iowa House of Representatives for sixteen years (2003-2019) and was the first minority to serve on the House Agriculture Committee. Additionally, Miller chaired the Iowa Board of Parole from July 2019 to July 2021. Miller shares the events of her life in the context of the Civil Rights Movement and beyond, during the times when people of color were finding and projecting their voices onto the tapestry that was and is America (helenmillerauthor.com).