African Voices Magazine - Sample

F all /W inter 2007

$6.00 ($9.00 outside of USA) www.africanvoices.com

A Soulful Collection

of

Art

and

Literature

African Voices: “You Can’t Shut Us Down”

Photos (l. to r.) - Ellie Charles Artists Awards 2003 - Poets/Activists Amiri and Amina Baraka hold a young fan at the Ellie Awards ceremony and Amiri Baraka accepts his Ellie Award at the same celebration. Photo Credit: Joann Cheatem, Pure Jazz Magazine.

Become A Pioneer Member to Own Your Culture, History & Art African Voices Communications, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which sponsors literary arts programs like Get Your Read On!, a family literacy program that provides storytelling and writing workshops to young people in communities of color; the Reel Sisters Film Festival, which presents films directed, produced or written by women of color; Rhymes, Rhythms and Rituals, a poetry and music in-the-park series; and the Cultural Circle Conference, a forum for writers and visual artists.

Our annual Ellie Charles Artists Awards benefit honors artists, community activists and other educators for their contributions to society. African Voices is one of the few outlets where visual artists, writers, performing artists and activists of color can have their work published and celebrated. Since 1993, African Voices has published more than 500 writers and visual artists.

We have also given more than $10,000 in scholarship money to aspiring writers and artists through the Ellie Charles Artists Awards and Reel Sisters Film Festival. To learn more about our programs visit www.africanvoices.com or call 212.865.2982.

Yes! I want to join the African Voices Family!

Please enroll me as a member at the selected level below:

Please charge my credit card: __ AMEX __VISA __MC __ Discover

__ INDIVIDUAL $40 __ SINGLE SUPPORTING $60 __ DUAL SUPPORTING $150 __ FELLOW $350 __ SUPPORTING $500 __ SUSTAINING $1,500 __ ANGEL $5,000 __ BENEFACTOR $10,000+

Acct. #___________________ Exp. Date: _______

Please make check payable to: African Voices 270 W. 96th Street New York, NY 10025 My gift is in the amount of $____________________

Name:____________________________________ Address:__________________________________ City: _____________State: _______ Zip: _______ Phone: ___________________________________ Email:____________________________________ Thank you for your generous support!

Publisher’s Note

VOLUME NO. 12, ISSUE 23

AFRICAN VOICES COMMUNICATIONS, INC. Founded in 1992, published since 1993

270 W. 96th STREET, NYC 10025 Phone: 212-865-2982 Fax: 212-316-3335 www.africanvoices.com PUBLISHER/EDITOR Carolyn A. Butts EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER/ POETRY EDITOR Layding Kaliba MANAGING EDITOR Maitefa Angaza ART DIRECTOR Derick Cross LAYOUT & DESIGN Lorraine Rouse Graphic Dimensions ACTING CHAIRPERSON BOARD OF DIRECTORS Jeannette Curtis-Rideau

© 2007, African Voices is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization.

Donations are tax-deductible.

ISSN 1530-0668 This magazine is made possible with public funds from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and the NY State Council on the Arts

African Voices dedicates this issue to Sekou Sundiata and Yictove, two of our finest poets and artists. These brothers were committed cultural healers and community workers who helped mentor hundreds of young poets. Although I did not have the pleasure of knowing Sekou personally, I loved seeing him perform and his poems are meditations for the soul. He is a metaphysical being who transforms any space he occupies. Sekou makes any part of the universe he’s in better and the aftershocks of his presence on earth are still being felt by those loved ones he left behind.

The heavens shook when he made his transition in July 2007. We had a frightening thunderstorm just as he was crossing over. In this issue, poet Renita Martin writes in her dedication to Sekou: “You darted the threshold, chimed/’Honey, I’m Home!’/God jumped up, twirled her skirt flamenco style/Stomped so loud the angels came stumbling out.”

It is fair to say Sekou is still writing poetry in the sky and performing his magic for a new audience. The same is true of Yictove. He was one of the first poets to support African Voices when it was a fledging magazine struggling to find its voice. Yictove hosted fundraisers for the magazine at the Knitting Factory and other poetry spots around the city. He was one of the first poets whose work helped pave the way for other talented writers to submit work.

Sekou and Yictove cared passionately about bringing art at the highest level of excellence to the people. Teaching and inspiring other artists were part of their lifemissions; the opportunities that came to them were shared with other artists and poets.

Everyone possesses the power to transform and transcend circumstances. We can all open doors for one another and create change. We honor the lives of Sekou and Yictove when we practice that creative power.

By the way, this issue was inspired by a subscriber who requested we dedicate the next issue to Sekou and our call for some poems dedicated to Sekou led to an avalanche of tribute poems, which transformed this issue.

African Voices is privileged to share a few remembrances with you.

Together, we evolve,

Front Cover: Art by Otto Neals. See Gallery on page 46 Back Cover: the 51st (dream) state performance. Photo credit: Julieta Cervantes, courtesy of MAPP (Multi Arts Projects & Productions)

Visit the Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center — Queens Library Home of the Black Heritage Reference Center of Queens County (New York City’s largest circulating collection on the Black Experience)

More than a library, it’s a Cultural Institution Musical performances, creative writing workshops, film screenings, artist exhibitions, jazz brunches, annual Kwanzaa and Langston Hughes Celebrations

100-01 Northern Boulevard, Corona, New York 11368 (718) 651-1100 • www.queenslibrary.org

4

african Voices

Contents FICTION 22

The Letters by Pittershawn Palmer

38

Mama Kwanzaa & Her Seven Children by Ibi Aanu Zoboi

FEATURE Andrew W. Cooper, Brooklyn’s City Son by Wayne Dawkins

26

Voting rights activist and journalist transformed NY’s Political landscape

POEMS 10

The trees seem a little taller now by Iyanla Vanzant

18

Free! by Sekou Sundiata

19

Say It (for Sekou Sundiata) by reg e gaines

20 Thoughts Following Sekou’s Homegoing:

Rowing Boats to Sunset by Tanya C. Tyler

21

The Storm by Renita Martin

21

haiku sekou thanku by Josslyn Luckett

25

The Sound of Sekou by C.D. Grant

25

traveling for sekou sundiata by Bennie Herron

31

Poem for Sekou Sundiata by Louis Reyes Rivera

32

To Sekou Sundiata by Henry Grimes

33 One Good Kidney, One Great Heart

by Sandra María Esteves 37 Corner Post Café — Brooklyn 1977

by Brenda Connor-Bey

41

Sekou Trane and Monk by Ted Wilson

41

Blues in the Abstract Truth by Ted Wilson

41

Traveling Song for Sekou by Mervyn Taylor

42 Rippling voice of a Man called Blessed: Hymn

by Nicole Duncan-Smith

44

Spirit Rising by Amurá Oña

45

how you gon be a poet, mister by Sekou Sundiata

THE LITERARY VOICE Kwanzaa: From Holiday to Everyday —Excerpt by Maitefa Angaza

34

IN EVERY ISSUE

8 9

In Passing Yictove (Eugene Melvin Turk) Baba Nzee Moyo

11

Sekou Sundiata

46

The Gallery

48

Drumbeat Listings

African Voices can be purchased at the following locations: MANHATTAN Kenny’s Newsstand 79 W. 125th St. (Corner Malcolm X Blvd.)

New York, NY Savacou Gallery 240 E. 13th St. NY, NY 10003

Chuike’s Palace C/o Harlem Birth Action Committee 2472B Frederick Douglass Blvd.

(132 & 133 Sts.) New York, NY 10027 (212) 862-8804

Also Available at Barnes & Noble!

BROOKLYN A & B Books Distributor 135 Lawrence Street Brooklyn, NY 11201

QUEENS, LONG ISLAND Bestseller Bookstore 43A Main Street Hempstead, NY 11550

MoCADA 80 Hanson Place Brooklyn, NY 11201

OUTSIDE NEW YORK Karibu Books 3500 East West Highway Hyattsville, Md. 20782

Ubiquity Distributors 607 De Graw Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

You Can’t Shut Us Down” Membership Campaign African Voices Thanks Pioneer Members for Keeping Doors Open We are truly on a journey to own our history, art and culture. Our goal is to raise $40,000 to maintain our quarterly editorial schedule and thanks to many of you we have raised more than $25,000 since we started the “You Can’t Shut Us Down Campaign” in 2006.

Our long-term goal is to raise a $1 million endowment for the organization.

We invite you to join our pioneer members in supporting “You Can’t Shut Us Down.” Your membership entitles you to discounts to our events, a free gift and a membership listing. Please see our membership benefits on the next page.

Please spread the word to friends and family — an African Voices membership or subscription is a great holiday gift that lasts the year.

You may donate online at www.africanvoices.com.

Benefactor Supporter National Endowment for the Arts Big Read New York City Department of Cultural Affairs The Jerome Foundation Camille and William Cosby Foundation New York State Council on the Arts Angel Supporter Riverside Sharing Fund JP Morgan Chase WABC-TV Sustaining Supporter Dr. Bernard Charles Independence Community Foundation Supporting Level Troy Johnson, Goldman Sachs Haki Madhubuti Gender Studies Dept., Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation Fellow Supporter Ralph Dickerson, Jr. Dante Michaeux Dual Supporting Level Marie Brown Toni Fay Dr. Green-Williams Dr. & Mrs. Roscoe M. Moore, Jr. Thelma R. Thomas Single Supporting Level Brenda Connor-Bey Charlotte H. Crawford Dorothy B. Cunningham, Ph.D.

6

african Voices

Antionette M. Davis C.D. Grant Chris Holbrock Leo Bruce Hopewell Woodie King, Jr. Thomasina Reed Jean Rock Stefanie Siegel Celeste Smith Kalyca Thomas Individual Supporting Level James H. Anderson, 3rd Evangelia Biddy Brenda Blackmon Michael Braddock Patrice Bradshaw Vinie Burrows Norris Carey Roy Yvette Grant Clements Bernie Collins Mary B. Davis Stacey N. Dawes Alys B. Fentress Zeta Godboalt C.D. Grant Eleanor Greene Dorothea Hoskins Dr. Juanita Howard Angela Kinamore Susan Leanier Mary Leftenant Paula Jay McCalla Dr. Andreé-Nicola McLaughlin David S. Mills Carl Nunn Dr. Robert Pinckney Richard Price Debbie Quinn

James Randall T. Rasul Yolanda Reed Charlotte Rutherford Vera Sims Professor Delores Smalls Brenda L. Smith Dr. Keith Taylor Margaret and Quincy Troupe Charles Warrts, Jr. Richard Watson Najuma Weeks Celia Wickham, MS Ed. Renee Wingo In-kind Contributions Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts, Long Island University Long Island University, Media Arts Dept., Brooklyn Campus Brooklyn Public Library, Grand Army Plaza Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz Columbia University Special Thanks to our Friends Imhotep Gary Byrd and J.D. Livingstone Rodney K. Hurley Kojo Ade Laurie Cumbo Andrew Jackson, Langston Hughes Library Annie Brown Voza Rivers Sandra Overstreet WBAI Amsterdam News April Silver, Akila Worksongs

African Voices Membership Program Become a member of African Voices and support artists of color! Our membership program recognizes all financial supporters of African Voices as members of our organization. If you donate at the levels listed below, you will be rewarded with an automatic subscription or renewal to the magazine and special benefits (Please note: If you are a business owner, you can participate in our membership program by donating discounts or free tickets/merchandise to our new membership program in exchange for ad space in African Voices magazine or as a tax-deductible gift.) It may take four to six weeks for you to receive your African Voices membership card. Please fill out the enclosed membership envelope and return to: African Voices, 270 W. 96th Street, New York, NY 10025. $40 Individual Membership • African Voices Surprise gift!

• A personalized membership card for one • Special African Voices mailings • Listing in African Voices Magazine $60 Single Supporting Membership • All the benefits of Basic Membership • African Voices “Get Your Read On!” Tote Bag • Admission for one to upcoming members-only events $150 Dual Supporting Membership • All the benefits of Individual Membership for two people • Two one-day passes to Reel Sisters Film Festival or Cultural Circle Conference.

• Name recognition in GYRO! literacy reading programs. $350 Fellow Membership • All the benefits of Single Supporting Membership • Two tickets to the Ellie Charles Artists Awards • Name recognition in African Voices magazine.

$500 Supporting Membership • All the benefits of Dual Supporting Membership • Name recognition in African Voices magazine $1,500 Sustaining Membership • All the benefits of two Dual Supporting Memberships • Four tickets to Ellie Charles Artists Awards • Name recognition in all African Voices events $5,000 Angel Membership • All the benefits of four Dual Supporting Memberships • Eight tickets to Ellie Charles Artists Awards Ceremony and private reception • Name recognition in all African Voices events $10,000 Benefactor Membership • All the benefits of Angel Memberships • Access for four guests to all paid African Voices events • Acknowledgement in press materials promoting GYRO! • Name recognition in all African Voices events

african Voices

7

I N P A S S I N G

In Loving Memory of Yictove (Eugene Melvin Turk) February 28, 1946 – July 29, 2007 Written by daughter, Chiemyah Lunn Edited by friend, Sandra L. West Eugene Melvin Turk, born February 28, 1946 in New Orleans, Louisiana and died July 29, 2007 in Newark, New Jersey, was known to most as “Yictove.” He is survived by his daughter Chiemyah Lunn; and his four siblings Erna Blazio, Ann Lecompte, Consuello Elizabeth Battin, and John Carl Turk. He is preceded in death by his loving parents Eugene and Malvina Turk.

Yictove cherished life and embraced every moment, and he leaves many fond memories. He was a gentle, loving man and possessed many great qualities. He was a loving father; a wonderful and caring brother to his three sisters and brother, and a dedicated friend to many. I was blessed to have been given away by my dad at my wedding on June 9, 2007 in Santa Monica, California to Philip, Nicholas and Christian Lunn, which brought him great joy and two new grandsons.

My dad was a brilliant poet, artist and chef. He published two books of poetry—D.J. Soliloquy was one title and Blue Print was another —and he was working on his third. He also had a CD, titled My Life, My Story. He was very dedicated to the artistry of writing and creating music.

In his life he mentored a host of students at high schools throughout New Jersey, including East Orange High School, and taught creative writing through the local libraries such as East Orange Public Library.

He touched many with his optimism and creativity. He believed that everyone had the same potential to express himself or herself creatively as well.

He spoke and taught Hebrew, living a very spiritual life as an Israelite.

From his spiritual life, he elected his name Yictove, which means “He will write.” He loved to travel all over he world. Some of the places he loved most were Jamaica, Venice, California, and Amsterdam. He had an extensive collection of music and enjoyed unique sounds and the energy of multicultural music.

Dad, I admire the way you lived; such spirit and conviction!

You inspired me. You made me think, you made me laugh, you made me proud that you were the Father in my life. © Printed with permission from the online journal Chickenbones: A Journal for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes. To enjoy the tribute to Yictove visit: www.nathanielturner.com/yictoveobituary.htm.

8

african Voices

Jamming

By Yictove I’ll be jammin on the board tonight Jammin until the daylight Jammin in a calculated dream supervising a personal scheme in florescent light.

I’ll be jammin on my board tonight.

Local DJ him say, “I don’t want strictly lyrics to play.”

I’ll be jammin on my board tonight.

A lady in the balcony she’s screamin, “Throw a sweet kiss to me” while I’m jammin on my board tonight.

Celebrate each and every day.

Joyous words you can hear me say-Jammin on my board tonight.

Began jammin at a tender age.

They put my picture upon the fruit page.

Share the same philosophy, get up and come with me.

You put the jam in overdrive just enough to keep the jam alive. .

If I ever go to France, I’ll step up to the mike and make the people dance If I ever got to Hong Kong I’ll make the people chant along.

Jammin on my board tonight.

Jammin through sweet morning light Jammin on your stereo only because you want a little more.

Called my baby on the phone.

She said she was jammin in the Tropic Zone.

Jammin on my board tonight.

Jammin cause it feels just right.

Jammin on my board tonight.

I N P A S S I N G

African Voices salutes cultural pioneer Baba Mzee Moyo, Chief of Operations of the International African Arts Festival for more than 20 years. When he joined the ancestors he left behind a commanding legacy, a loving family and a grateful community.

Several other arts icons and cherished figures have transitioned as well, since the publication of our last issue. We salute Dr. Asa Hilliard, Max Roach, John Lucien, Baba Hodari and Judy Dothard Simmons. Space does not permit a proper tribute to them all.

In this issue we honor poet Sekou Sundiata as requested by many of our readers and offer the poem below in remembrance of Baba Mzee.

Head Heart Mzee Moyo In search of a name That would carry him Into the battle To save his people Gerald Smith of Brooklyn Found the African words For Head Heart That Mzee Elder of the tribe Wise one Owner of the secrets Keeper of the children Parent to the parents Feeder of the family That Moyo Heart center A king in the court Walking among the throng Feeling our sorrow Easing our pain Finding the cure for fear Head Heart Knew a morning bath Kept you cool in hottest summer Head Heart Felt with a smile Wrestled night into The first bright of day No talk first Rap-olutionary No hot head comet Leaving his burning tail Burning the tails of others No flat leaver of

His friends from the Ave. No mere philosopher king he worked And talked Yaya out Of picketing his friends And walked Kuumba Up the stairs With her books for the children Gave assurance to the uninsured Keeper of the kith and kin Keeper of the Council Stoker of the kitchen fire Fighter for the Festival Head Heart Mzee Moyo What is the African word for Hand?

Š Will Halsey, 2007

african Voices

9

The trees seem a little taller now.

The grass seems a little greener now.

The angels sing a little louder now because Sundiata has come to join the eternal nature of life.

There is a place in my heart that shall always whisper, Sundiata.

There is a place in my spirit that shall always pray for, Sundiata There is a place in my African being that stands tall and proud and strong because I had the honor of sharing time and space and learning and living with the essence of the ancestral spirits, housed in a body that was known to me as Sekou Sundiata.

For his life I am grateful.

Fare-well my brother, for now you are home.

Ase!

Š 2007, Iyanla Vanzant

Volunteers Needed Want to expand your resume or portfolio?

Join Us!

African Voices, a non-profit cultural arts organization, is looking for talented writers, artists, grantwriters and business people to help build our national magazine. Retirees and students welcomed.

Please forward your resume.

Phone: (212) 865-2982 or mail to Volunteer Coordinator, African Voices 270 W. 96th Street, New York, NY 10025 Email: africanvoices@aol.com 10

african Voices

I N P A S S I N G

African Voices is honored to publish a portion (edited for length) of Amiri Baraka’s powerful and artful eulogy for Sekou Sundiata:

SEKOU SUNDIATA Amiri Baraka This great poet takes the name by which the world knows him from two great rulers of Africa: Sundiata, the first ruler of the Mali empire (1230AD), in what was called Africa’s Golden Age and Sekou, after the Democratic Republic of Guinea’s liberator from French colonialism, the great leader, Sekou Toure.

I first met Sekou in some organizing meeting in New York City aimed at creating an Afro American delegation to the 6th Pan African Congress (“6 PAC,” we called it), which was eventually held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1974. All those meetings were vigorous, serious and long.

There had been some attempt to limit delegations to government appointed ones, in Africa and the Caribbean, so that, by default, the Afro American delegation was the only one nominally independent.

In those meetings and most clearly in Dar, I came to recognize the young, dark, strikingly handsome, shy, but articulate, brother who seemed to be finding his way through the maze of Pan African political unity, struggle and polemic. The Six PAC was so significant because it was the first Pan African meeting held in Africa itself! The famous 5th PAC was called together by WEB DuBois and met in Manchester, England, when it was impossible to meet on the continent of colonial Africa. That conference was attended

by Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta and Azikiwe who were among the first leaders of post colonial Africa, in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria.

The 6PAC made such an impact, not only because it was the first on the African continent, but because it tried to bring together representatives from the whole of the African Diaspora with representatives from each nation in Africa.

What made this conference of even more importance was that it was honored by the presence and addresses of two of the greatest of contemporary African leaders, Sekou Toure and Mwalimu Nyerere.

It was at that historic gathering that Pan Africanism, whose definition was tortured like the blind men describing the elephant, now was clearly defined by these two leaders simply as the world wide struggle of the African people against imperialism.

This pronouncement for some of us was crystal-clear and politically and materially correct. But that was not the case throughout the delegations, many of whom represented somewhat conservative or even reactionary governments. It was in this context that I clearly remember the young Sekou

Sundiata as a sympathetic ally as the internal struggles for clarity heated up with huffy words and mumbled denunciations of some of us who were pushing a left- and socialistoriented approach to Pan Africanism.

So it was in that period of more intense struggle for the liberation of Africa and equal rights, self-determination and democracy for Black people wherever they were in the world, that I came to appreciate the mind, heart and will of the still-developing Sekou Sundiata, who was in his middletwenties at the time.

It was only later that I discovered Sekou was a poet.

So it was the political consciousness of this poet that I first appreciated. But in those days, that was not unique, I first met poets Larry Neal and Askia Toure in demonstrations against the murder of Patrice Lumumba, where our comradely relations were initiated before I knew they were great poets.

The fact that the little known Robert “Bobby” Feaster of East Harlem, whom often uttered Spanish in his poetry, because he thought it was hip, not because he could actually speak the language, only came to be known internationally as a poet combining the names of two of the greatest African leaders is also a paradigm of what time he came to “true self consciousness.” Roland Snellings and Everett L. Jones are not as well known, as poets, as Askia Toure and Amiri Baraka.

So that Sekou was coming, like some of us before him, grounded in the political struggle of Black Americans and the Pan African struggle as well. Sekou, to me seemed to have gleaned and winnowed what he thought was most important from the Black Arts Movement (The Black Arts Repertory Theater School “BARTS” had come to Harlem in 1965) and the Black Consciousness movement from which it was spawned and which re-ignited the Black world, so that learning was one important factor of his teenage Harlem life.

This period, beginning with his birth in 1948 (the year after the India gained its independence and the year before the Chinese gained theirs) through little boydom, 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education. By the time he was 10, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King had already initiated, and led the united Afro American community of Montgomery, Ala. to victory in the bus boycott, and in a minute Fidel Castro led his Barbudos into Havana. The next year Malcolm X would appear on television for the first time and the Greensboro sit-ins would generate SNCC and

african Voices

11

the national student movement. Kwame Nkrumah became the first Premier of Ghana that same year, 1960.

These are not just historic facts, but part of the obvious Sekouization of young Bobby Feaster. This was his deep education, “A woman to my right worried a flag/the size of a handkerchief/ the kind you get at the fairgrounds/And Little Emmett Till came to me/ a face that long ago cured/ my schoolboy faith/ in that lyric/so that I could no longer sing/ with the voice of praise/As if it was my own/O beautiful for spacious skies” (51st state). The Till incident had happened when he was about seven years old. The boy’s slaughter is generally felt to be the transcendental horror that triggered the Civil Rights Movement. Welcome to America, Son! Sekou Toure said, “We are shaped by what contains us as we shape what we contain.” The poet Sekou Sundiata was shaped by that world, Blackly sensitive to it. “What is Life? / Life is what we are thinking about all day” (51st state).

All that at the root of his perception in and of this America. “I could even draw a map of the United States from memory!” A sensitive Afro American youth given a pan American perspective by his birth in Spanish Harlem.

“The Bodega Republic,” “…days & days goin by in broken English,” as a son of Black civil servants. Who would move all over Harlem in love with music and poetry and basketball.

Whose role models were his mother and father, Virginia and William Feaster and his older brothers. But by the time he was 14 Texas oil had assassinated John Kennedy and by the time he

12

african Voices

was 16, Malcolm X was murdered not far from where he lived.

Like chickens coming home to roost, these kinds of images would maraud throughout Sekou’s work.

He took from that period of mass struggle what he could use, what was true and fundamental and rejected and criticized what was superfluous and jive. That is the very freshness of what you hear on The Blue Oneness of Dreams. What we heard earlier with his seminal Are and Be Ensemble. We hear a voice committed to the nitty of truth and the gritty of real life.

And real life don’t fit no formulas or ready mades, even the ones we believe in.

This is Sekou’s freshness, reflecting of what we was, whether it was real or not. “In the early days of the Aftermath/I was in hiding/from the lost army of protest/calling from the 20th century/for something boisterous and skinny on the page.” And Was is as continuous as Is. Is becomes Was instantly, instanter upon instant.

And with that freshness, an openness to new things, innovations, a qualitatively renewed extension of the valuable, the proven, but released from slavish imitation by the psychological summation of what was true and beautiful and useful from what was not. So what we hear is usually impeccably placed images that represent ourselves at another time, at this time, “You don’t belong to Malcolm or Bird anymore…

Oh Harlem, Oh Harlem, Oh Harlem…..I don’t want to tell you, I don’t want to Tell you, Suppose I was dreaming, Oh Harlem, Oh Harlem, Oh Harlem.”

Sekou was the most artistically powerful and politically advanced voice to emerge in the wave of poets grown to maturity in the post 60’s milieu still reflecting the revolutionary thrust of Black Consciousness, Black Arts, Anti-Imperialist commitment. But there is a ubiquitous tenderness and sensuality throughout the work. And no poet is funnier than Sekou.

“Once I married a woman behind her back…she knew enough French to get out of the working class.” Such humor is, like Robin Hood’s arrows, dead on target. The exact image of what it was and what it is. Check how he can sum up his own generation’s perception of the Black fury in which he grew: “I never went to see John Coltrane because I thought you had to belong to something.”

But he would take Trane’s teachings and Malcolm’s and King’s and make totems to their truth in his own fashioning beauty. Listen to Sekou quote Malcolm and King on the fly, straight out of their mouths, reminding us and revealing to his own mass of roadies: “You wouldn’t use that word if you (Revolution) if you knew what it meant….” I would like to live a long life, longevity has its place….” but in a few beats we hear the agonizing sound as the icons are blown away by actual America penetrating our dreams. “I even wrote a character named Mason Dixon into one of my stories. His job was to stop you at the (Mason-Dixon) Line and search your car for weapons.” By the time Sekou was 20 years old both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King would be murdered. Take all that and give it back.

Sekou’s entire approach to literature was live and on records. So he created audioture. Are & Be, (1980) which announced for me that he was indeed at the head of the next wave of powerful witnesses. The hip waited eagerly for the wonderfully titled, The Circle Unbroken is a Hard Bop, which we saw and heard and knew what we first dug was true, and that Sekou was stretching out now in earnest.

He was by now beginning to receive some wider acknowledgment of his work and several awards and grants, culminating in a professorship at the New School. But it was his own production that was the most valuable aspect of Sekou’s life, not the accretion of outside response. Unfortunately this production was marred near the end of his life by uncertain health, although his kidney disease and need for dialysis and a new kidney brought out the internationally acclaimed blessing the boats, which premiered in Harlem, at the Apollo (’02) and examined his life under siege by the disease and served not only as inspiration but the very practical role of instructing people all over the world what kidney disease was and how it was to be fought, lived with and conquered. On the blessing tour discussions were included.

Sekou was just taking off, that is the depth of my own sadness. When I first heard he had split I blurted out to an old friend on the phone, “it’s not fair…” and we both wept.

Because Sekou was always, as Richard Wright instructed us, at the top of his time. The 51st (dream) state turns his

wandering across a Manhattan consciousness: “I came to my feet at the Wall St. station/and walked towards the door/like a reluctant witness to the witness stand” into 911: “I drowned in a flood of burning Jet fuel/ Down was looking like Up when I jumped with my brains on fire/ I ran from the falling towers and wandered for days. A priest kneels in the powdered ash/ The holy ghost and the angel of death cross paths/Someone calls for the jaws of life: earth water fire air!” (51st (dream) state) And in the next breath he is in New Orleans unhealed from Katrina’s blows: “A citizen walks into a Citizenship looking for directions as the drama opens in a New American/ Theater with a view from the 9th Ward that looks out on Speed, an ancient word for a future that is Always Now, a millennium already old and half done.” For me, I was constantly awed by Sekou’s incredible sensitivity and skills. To me, he was a comrade in struggle, a co-cultural worker gigging hard at the task of raising the consciousness of the people, yes our people, but all people. In one of our conversations when Sekou came to Newark to read in the Poet Laureate’s series at the Newark Library and in Newark Schools, we agreed, that it was very dangerous living in a world full of ignorance. So his stream of dedications to reach anybody, everybody, somebody, “prayer after prayer bears witness by listening for a call back /Peace and whatnot to the indigenous people of the Salvation Army/ Amen to the sinners coming to the House of the Lord for the sweet hour of power/Inshallah to the believers handcuffed in front of the hallal store” (51st (dream) state) Everywhere, anywhere, trying to register everything, touch everything, Mao told us perception is the lowest form of knowledge, rationalization the next, that is what is it I am digging, the poet, like Sekou takes the perception and includes the rationalization, the what it is, within that same image, so that the highest stage of knowledge, use, is realized to the highest extent. No more becomes Know More. Like Billy the Kid drawing and firing and hitting the bullseye without apparently aiming. So a child thought. Billy said, “I’m always aiming.” So was Sekou.

You telling me that now he is an ancestor. When he was just beginning, but already become, another icon within our own cultural treasure chest, his glorious addition, The Circle Unbroken… A Hard Bop. But it is time, Maurine Kazi, Craig, Katea, Louis and Sekou’s whole circle of friends, relatives and artists, to gather what Louis Reyes Rivera characterizes in the title of his own book, as “Scattered Scripture,” all of Sekou’s scattered scripture and reissue the audioture and now the literature.

We need it. We must have it!

african Voices

13

I N P A S S I N G

Obituary: Gifted Poet Sekou Sundiata (August 22, 1948 -- July 18, 2007)

by Louis Reyes Rivera

O

n Wednesday, July 18, 2007, at 5:47a.m. (ET), poet Sekou Sundiata passed away. A highly esteemed performance poet, Mr. Sundiata wrote for print, performance, music and theater. Born Robert Franklin Feaster in Harlem on August 22, 1948, Sundiata came of age as an artist during the Black Arts/Black Aesthetic movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

While attending the City College of New York (CCNY), where he began reciting poetry publicly, Sundiata converged with several other student activists, including once-mayoral candidate of Pittsburgh and longtime friend, Leroy Hodge, to form the basis for what soon became known as the Black and Puerto Rican Student Community of City College (BPRSC). This phalanx of 400 students soon made their own history, closing the 21,000-student campus during the Spring of 1969, to demand, among other things, that CCNY be renamed Harlem University. The net effect of the student takeover culminated in both an Open Admissions Policy that took effect in September 1970, the full legitimization of ethnic studies departments throughout the nation, as well as the requirement that all education majors within the City University take courses in African American History and have Spanish as a Second Language.

Among his acknowledged mentors at City were Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, and fellow student Louis Reyes Rivera, with whom Sundiata helped to establish the first Black student newspaper in the City University, CCNY’s The Paper. Their association would span close to forty years of mutual respect and admiration.

Upon completing his Bachelor’s Degree (1972), Sundiata enrolled and completed his Master’s in Creative Writing while regularly producing community-based poetry readings that were known to draw standing room only crowds. In 1976, his creative sensibilities, his innate organizing skills, and his associations with a convergent generation of excellent poets, musicians and dancers immediately led to a collaborative project he directed that would commemorate 100 years of Black struggle for freedom and Human Rights. Titled The Sound of the Memory of Many Living People (1863-1876/ 19631976), this production, which included upcoming novelist Arthur Flowers and such poets as Safiya Henderson-Holmes, BJ Ashanti, Tom Mitchelson, Louis Reyes Rivera, et al, was staged in Harlem over a period of two days, signaling much of what was to come from Sekou’s sense of vision, steadily breaking ground for what was then a new literary genre, Performance Poetry, fully anticipating elements of both Hip Hop Culture and Spoken Word Art. In 1977, the aforementioned poets, along with Zizwe Ngafua, Rashidah Ismaili, Fatisha (Hutson), Sandra María Esteves, Akua Lezli Hope, Mervyn Taylor, and Sekou, among others, formed the Calabash Poets Workshop, which signaled the arrival of a new literary heat in New York, regularly producing soirees and forums (1977-1983) that included all of the arts and culminated in a three-year attempt (1979-1982) to establish an independent Black Writers Union.

His first book of poetry, FREE! (Shamal Books) was published in 1977, and was soon followed by his first vinyl album

14

african Voices

(circa 1980), Are & Be. Immediately, Sekou was dubbed by Amiri Baraka as “the State of the Art.” Since then, Mr. Sundiata established a longtime relationship with CCNY’s Aaron Davis Performing Arts Center, through which venue he intermittently produced new material for the stage, consistently collaborating with musicians, dancers and actors. He was eventually selected for a number of earned fellowships, including a Sundance Institute Screenwriting Fellow, a Columbia University Revson Fellow, a Master Artist-in-Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts (Florida), and as the first Writerin-Residence at the Eugene Lang College of the New School University, where he remained a professor.

He was, as well, among those featured in the Bill Moyers’ PBS series on poetry, The Language of Life, and in Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam on HBO. Among several highly acclaimed performance theater works in which he served as both author and performer are: The Circle Unbroken is a Hard Bop, which toured nationally and received three AUDELCO Awards and a BESSIE Award; The Mystery of Love, commissioned and produced by New Voices/New Visions at Aaron Davis Hall in New York City, and at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia; and Udu, a music theater work produced by 651 ARTS in Brooklyn and presented by the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, the Walker Art Center and Penumbra Theater in Minneapolis, Flynn Center in Burlington, VT, the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and Miami-Dade Community College in Florida. Throughout this period and since 1985, he developed a close association with collaborator and legendary trombonist Craig S. Harris.

Blessing the boats, Sundiata’s first solo theater piece, an exploration into his own personal battles with kidney failure, opened in November 2002 at Aaron Davis Hall. It has since been presented in more than 30 cities and continued to tour nationally. In March 2005, Sundiata produced The Gift of Life Concert, an organ donation public awareness event at the Apollo Theater that kicked off a three-week run of blessing the boats at the Apollo’s SoundStage in partnership with the Apollo Theater Foundation, the National Kidney Foundation and the New York Organ Donor Network with support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Since 2006, his the 51st (dream) state has been presented throughout the U.S. and in Australia. Both blessing the boats and the 51st (dream) state were produced in collaboration with MultiArts Projects and Productions (MAPP). In addition to working within community engagement activities at Harlem Stages/Aaron Davis Hall, the University of Michigan and University Musical Society (Ann Arbor, MI), the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC), the University of Texas Austin (Austin, TX), in Miami Dade College (Miami, FL), and the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, Sundiata has appeared as a featured speaker and artist at the Imagining America Conference (Ann Arbor, MI), at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston, MA), and at the Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed Conference (Minneapolis, MN), among others. Prior to his passing, he was engaged in producing a DVD documenting the America Project for use by universities and presenters as a model for art and civic engagement.

In addition to the 1979 Are & Be album, Sundiata’s other releases include a second album, The Sound of the Memory of Many Living People, and two CDs, The Blue Oneness of Dreams, nominated for a Grammy Award, and longstoryshort.

Each of these works are rich with the sounds of Blues, funk, Jazz and African and Afro-Caribbean percussion, with the latter two featuring Craig Harris.

He is survived by his mother, Virginia Myrle Feaster, his wife, Maurine Knighton, daughter Maisha Gomez, stepdaughter Aida Riddle, grandson Amman, brothers William Walter and Ronald Eugene, sister Devona, as well as a host of relatives, admirers, students and friends.

Louis Reyes Rivera, aka the Janitor of History, is a highly respected underground poet who has assisted in the publication of over 200 books, including John Oliver Killens’ Great Black Russian, and Bum Rush The Page: A Def Poetry Jam. He has taught courses on Pan-African, Caribbean and Puerto Rican literature and history. Among his own works is the award-winning Scattered Scripture, a translation of history into poetry. He can be heard Thursdays, at 2pm, on WBAI, 99.5FM (streamed at www.wbai.org) hosting Perspective, and may be reached at Louisreyesrivera@aol.com.

african Voices

15

I N P A S S I N G

Sekou Sundiata, Owner of Words

by Charles and Gayle Lynch Sekou and I (Charles) bonded in a Socialist organization in Harlem, the Black New York Action Committee, in the mid 1970s, when I called him “The Coup,” a nickname that acknowledged a specialness in his bearing, the power of his speech, and his confidence in becoming a writer who would challenge the status quo.

Early on, I was proud and happy to be in Sekou’s company. He was humorous, handsome, enigmatic, and charismatic. As my wife Gayle stated, “Sekou had broad shoulders, long arms and was tall and lean.

Clothes hung from him nicely. He was friendly but had a cool, detached manner, kind of a ‘slitherer,’ weaving in and out among people, who often wanted his attention. He liked to talk and josh around, but was never gabby and spoke in interesting visual ways. Very mannish and just smooth—smooth chocolate skin, smooth and deep voice, smooth, fluid movements.” Confession: I envied how entranced women were with him.

In 1977 Sekou published a chapbook Free!, a saga of identity, with the persona Free sponsoring a festival of distinctive voices and vivid sensory diction that herald the performer, medium, and seer Sekou would become. In his apprenticeship he assumed the mantle of Whitman, Neruda, and Ginsberg, the poetic posture that honors life’s diversity and abundance by sheer naming and listing phenomena and raising Big Questions about life’s mysteries—while attempting to address them. The preacher shows up, sermonizing, exhorting, spinning quasi-parables of genesis, revelation, and apocalypse. What a mix of forms and speech acts! Conversational prose. Singsong rhymes typical of children’s games Adage. Proclamation.

Definition. Folk idiom. Imitations of a horn’s sounds. The judicial system’s and the military’s bureaucratic jargon. Impressionistic portraits. Imagistic riffs. Snatches of lyrics from blues, gospel, R&B, and jazz.

Slang. A kaleidoscopic mix of onomatopoeia in metaphors and images. Rhetorical questions. Lyricism of lust and lament. Boasts. Memo jottings. Spanish phrases. Confessions. Free!, in proto, is the vestibule to The Circle Unbroken is a Hard Bop, The Blue Oneness of Dreams, longstoryshort, blessing the boats, and the 51st (dream) state.

Like John Coltrane, Marvin Gaye, and Bob Marley, artists I cherished, Sekou left us too soon. He was bold and redemptive, an antidote to the Hip Hop culture’s sybaritic afflictions and Gangsta Rap’s toxicity. Like many rappers, Sekou had been drug-ridden, had street creds, and his voice and stage mannerisms conferred celebrity. Like them, he indicted our nation’s penchant for oppression, dramatized the plight of alienated Black males, and described how destructive (and seductive) violence can be. Yet, unlike many rappers, Sekou was not a victim of his pen or tongue. In “The Politics of Writing (A Personal View),” presented at a Calabash Poets Workshop panel in October 1981, Sekou declares as a teenager he “saw that unless you owned the image-words, they will never do what you want them to do. I set out to own them.” He did so as a champion and defender of humankind’s strengths, as a visionary and an internationalist whose consciousness and commitment were not confined to “the hood,” so ubiquitous and bountiful in gifting him as an artist.

Robert Franklin Feaster’s Sekou Sundiata is a testament to how the “self” as a product of family and community metamorphoses through triumph and struggle and the quest for knowledge and clarity into a beloved, wise man, transcendent in his mastery of The Word. Sekou’s epitaph could echo Ossie Davis’s eulogy for El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. He was “our own black shining Prince!” whose prolific genius and generosity of spirit enhances and renews our lives. Thank you for all you were—and will be.

16

african Voices

I N P A S S I N G

I

met Sekou some thirty years ago, when I was asked to photograph him, and since then heard him perform his work numerous times. Over the years I have had the opportunity to reflect on the man, his work, his evolution as an artist, and what

that meant to me as I was coming to grips with my own art practice.

I have long since come to believe that the degree to which ones work continues

to resonate in the minds of the listener or viewer long after the encounter itself has transpired is a somewhat meaningful barometer of how successful the work has been.

We tend to forget the fluff, the overstated, or the mundane and poorly crafted utterance—literary or visual—shortly after it is made. When the work is effective however, we find ourselves quietly humming the song, reciting pieces of the poem from memory, or recalling the way a particular picture first enlightened or sensitized us to experience that we then felt we should have already been attuned to. The observant and skillful artist crafts that observation into an utterance that sears its way into our consciousness.

Sekou’s work as poet and performer made it clear that it was an understanding of craft, and the deep study and practice

that it implies, that gives wings to experience, and allows it to do the magical and transformative work that we hope it will do.

Hearing him periodically over the years constantly reminded me of this and challenged me to continually raise the level of my own work.

That he was a fine poet was clear to anyone who had some knowledge of the idiom. But over the years Sekou made his work

resonate with folks whose only engagement with poetry as such may have been their attendance at one of his performances. As he continued to mine his own experiences he clearly allowed others to mine theirs through him. He never wavered from his belief in his people and his own history and circumstances, but as he continued on his journey through his ever-expanding practice, I believe that his sense of who “his” people were continued to broaden. As he continued to push his work, so his work in turn pushed him further and further out into the world. Certainly more and more people from widely different circumstances found his words speaking to them. His growing awareness of art as a social practice was highly instructive for me as well, and fueled my own desire to have my work continue to directly engage the larger world.

I admired and had a deep respect for Sekou Sundiata. I always learned a lot from him, and I do believe that my work and

I are better for having known him.

Dawoud Bey, Chicago, IL

african Voices

17

FREE!

©1 977 Sekou Sundiata, Chapbook “FREE!”

18

african Voices

Free. F-R-E-E. that’s me. Free! when I was a kid, they kicked me outta gramma school cause i was Free. i knew it and they knew it. every morning, this ol’ fatback—porkchop—looking teacher used to drag a raggedy assed dirty flag from out the corner of the room, wanting us to put one hand over our heart, talkin’ bout, “i pledge allegiance to the flag of the New Nineted States of Amurika.” that’s just how we used to say it, too; “New Nineted States of Amurika.” come snack time, she wanted us to close our eyes and commence to praying over some scrawny municipal cookies and them little containers of milk. sheeeit! then they started with all them damn bells: the late bell. the early bell. the lunch bell. the recess bell. the bell, hell! i wasn’t going anotha futha. they musta thought i was amos’n andy with all them bells. but i was just being me. Free. not anotha futha. so they put me outta the first grade. said i had, irrational behavior. could not work or get along well with others. needed sy—key—at—trick help. and that was just the first time. putting me out, that was the first time. i remember another time, when i was in high school, they wanted to start this here choir or chorus or something...i never did know the difference. anyhow, this strange voice came over the loudspeaker one day, saying if anybody wanted to try out for this thing to come on down to the auditorium when the bell rang. well, i didn’t have nothing to do the next period cause they gave everybody this special time everyday to do whatever they wanted to do. i figured they did that in honor of me cause they named it the Free Period. besides that, i was down with all that singing. i already had visions of myself singing at the apollo theater. sweat dripping down my face, watering a diamond ring on my microphone hand, the whole place be dark except a thin spotlite reaching from way up in the back, just caressing my passionate figure as i dazzled the ladies between the solid gold groove of my latest hit record and the candy cotton mattress of their sweetest deelites. yeah! i was ready to do some serious humming. when it came my turn to audition, them fools told me to sing, “Jingle Bells...Jingle Bells!” huh! i tol’em what to jingle and i already had a position on them bells. so i broke into my meanest rendition of, “for your precious love.” i sang the bass and the baritone the lead and the background i did the gangster grind and m’ssippi slow drag/hat broke down ace—deuce/cuatro—cinco fifty mission crush running down the middle talking bout: they call me coffee cause i grind so fine! so they put me out again. said i was crazy. they put me out. but i was just being me. Free.

Say It (for Sekou Sundiata) by reg e gaines 1990 Nuyorican re-open and we hopin’ while hittin’ Open Mics Sudan St. Marks Mosaic Book cuz we need to read poetry one night late night see Maggie Willie Big Bank Beatty then we see Sekou black & white Film Noir light stylized cuts this cool cat in this pork pie hat tellin’ us that bein’ black while drivin’ cars wasn’t cool a dialectical diatribe laced in lower case we’d soon see Space spittin’ poetics of tar feathered figures floating on the bottom of the ocean floor

trombone moans to stand up bass an ancestors face etched with years of toiled tears a taste of salt drips on lip like blues like bop like abstract sax like jazz is like jazz that Bird and Baldwin and Baraka blew sing your song say it Sekou your subtle sermons illuminate lies words unworthy words to the wise who analyze rebuke disguise then tell us all to blink our eyes and we do and like that this cool cat in this pork pie hat tellin’ us how bein’ black was beautiful was gone…

reg e gaines is a poet, musician, director and playwright. He is currently in production on his Hip-Hop musical, “Free”.

african Voices

19

Thoughts Following Sekou’s Homegoing: Rowing Boats to Sunset On a bright and early fairly benign, cloud-filled electric blue-lit sky wednesday, perhaps I smelled my childhood and knew quite suddenly the world I’d known had ceased to be my beautiful brother lost, me gustaria hablar contigo The picturehood of tree and ground that rose to kiss a wounded knee and carry back a memory embedded in a warning tone of Earth and many histories had long since faded to sky, recollections, old longings and tears to, repay, repair, and redeem the past but now, the past mocks us severely pulling from the DNA, the RNA and we are only phantoms of ourselves now — the ghosts of worlds in transit looking back for stars to guide us back to seas of navigated passage over which we surrendered youth, identities, wrapped in artificial folds of immortality — the height of man in foolishness… mi padre, mi padre, yo deseo mucho hablar con mi madre, con mi madre where now hides the songbird as I listen more intently for her melody where does she hide her nest and all the eggs of fortune symptoms noting nesting’s empty fallacies

Tanya C. Tyler © 7/21/07

and Earth beats and ticks and beats and ticks and beats and ticks despite our comings and our goings

abbreviated stays she survives our arrogance claims of mastering illusions we believed we assumed, hopes eating our hopes alive mi hermano, my casually fascinatin’ wonderfully worded warrior —fallen we pass before her naked and powerless unbirthing ourselves in eye of sun and after a time we shall pass no longer shall pass no more and all of our deeds and our words will travel in the wind and place themselves on the embers of a dying star – whispers, whispers whispers assigned to breeze shall feather the faces of all the faceless as they surrender to inevitability the portal swells and drinks its fill of us the resistors will do so without fail and without fail will surrender aah, but the wise will think the thoughts of kings and queens and princes and princesas* and regal their time spent in this dominion will usher out their last breaths in the kingdom of tomorrow listen intently for their poems to sing them to the higher grounds where the flame of life still burns… siempre hay esperanza and on the mastheads bearing names of all the oldest souls across the storm and seas and fog-filled mists remembrance will trod on and on and on and we will see our loved ones once more and know who they are by the happy they wear on their sleeves and the sun stationed in their dreams on that day, everyone is bound to be blessed el amor es para siempre everyone is bound to be blessed… following the last sunset. for Sekou Sundiata

*This is one of the many Spanlish words found in the poem in tribute to Sekou’s fondness for the language.

20

african Voices

For Sekou

The Storm When you darted the threshold, chimed “Honey, I’m Home!”

God jumped up, twirled her skirt flamenco style Stomped so loud the angels came stumbling out Gabriel lifted the top off The collard greens “It’s 5:47 in the morning; Just 15 more minutes, please, Lord.

And why you cooking dinner before daybreak?”

God grinned, “Sekou is back!”

The ovation rivaled FreakNik! Broke clouds/rumbled so hard I woke up thinking, “New York is on fire again!”

Renita Martin

haiku sekou thanku one man, ten bar-itone hearts. humid. unbroken. i bow in deep time

with respect and gratitude,

josslyn luckett

african Voices

21

F I C T I O N

The Letters

By Pittershawn Palmer The attic housed a mountain of dust and cobwebs. In corners, on cedar trunks, under the mahogany desk, strung from hat racks to bookshelves—cobwebs. Some were old and deserted, hanging broken, as the breeze from the open door rushed in to sway them like tattered sails on a sea worn ship.

Others were fresh and new, inhabited by species of insects indigenous to the little city of Long Pond. Stray beams of light peeked through the stained glass windows on either end of the vast room. Five years of dust gave a gray hue to the dimly lit space with splashes of red, blue and green. The paintings hung tilted and dark, covered with time. An old piano stood on three legs, defeated by loneliness and silence.

Boxes of tattered games lay atop its grand frame, sharing in the mood of its unexpected life—five revolutions around the sun it has stood.

Edward had been dead for all those years. His books, writings and letters had long been placed amongst other long forgotten items and distant memories, some forgotten by intention, others through the suppression of pain—all now a mishmash of events in time. The large black trunk sat under his desk. It was ominous, almost expecting—waiting. It sat diligently, patient, as Edward would.

He would slouch, his head bent, writing for hours on end under the soft light of his banker’s lamp. The green hue shown on his face as he punched away on the keys of his Underwood No. 5, an old piece he discovered at a remote auction house on the other side of town. His shadow climbed the walls, hastily mimicking his every move.

“Marie, would you please bring me a cup of coffee,” he chimed many times without lifting his head. “I just have one more page to complete and I’ll join you.” The keys resounded through the thickly decorated room, bouncing across tapestry, over stray papers and books spread eagle. Tap tap tap, tap tap, they pounded dull and swiftly.

Edward enjoyed writing romance novels. He said it helped him get in touch with his sensitive side. He was sentimental— a romantic at heart.

Half a decade of dust rose into the air as I opened the black cave that housed his memory. The smell of time met my nose in a flurry of musty worn cotton—many years in the dark. Books, bookmarks, manuscripts and letters lay unkempt throughout the deep and taunting time capsule.

22

african Voices

Ernest Hemingway, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Edgar Allen Poe mingled with his unfinished works. Near the right corner, beneath his old compass, was a stack of letters. Tied around them was a red satin ribbon. Each one was stamped and sealed, but never mailed. They were addressed to me.

I felt light as I held the large stack in my hand. A cardinal flew by one window, then decided to perch on the other. It stood regal, gazing about the horizon as though watching over the earth—and our tiny home. Its deep red body accented the clear sky. The cool of the hard cherry wood floor snapped me from my daze. I don’t remember when I fell to my knees, but the wood creaked as I shifted my weight to relieve the pressure. Why hadn’t he mailed these letters or simply given them to me? As I leaned further back to sit, I continued to flip through them and realized they were written during the first year of our marriage.

The first was dated January 1, 1956. As I gently opened it, the seal lifted easily, revealing years of wear and virtually no glue left to keep them sealed. As I read the salutation, Dear Marie, droplets of water ushered onto the envelope, jolting me once again back to the present—reminding me not to ruin these treasured correspondences. I read on.

Dear Marie, To tell you how much I love you would never help you to understand to what lengths I would go to give you the life you deserve. So I will profess my love in these letters. One day, I know you will find them. You may not understand why I could not mail them. But the truth of the matter is, my love for you cannot be uttered in the way I would like. It is like the belief by some religious sects that the name of God should not be spoken or written, for fear of desecrating the essence of our creator. But my dear Marie, I must at the very least write it; even if I cannot tell you beyond simply, I love you. The day I married you, I thought myself undeserving of such a woman.

But I learned to accept that you are my gift from the universe, a treasure to be revered and respected for as long as you live.

I can only hope you will love me with the same depth and passion. Until I write again.

With abiding love, Edward Like the frames in a picture show, scenes and things

from our life together flashed before me. The attic walls became a sea blue. Paintings adorned each wall with images of mountains, grassy knolls, a mother bathing a child and melting clocks. The melting clocks always intrigued me. The piece was called, The Persistence of Memory. It was one of Edward’s favorite pieces.

He would sit and stare at it for hours. It was hauntingly true to the idea of memory—how persistent it can be—almost unrelenting.

A simple Persian area rug dressed the room, with well-polished floors peeking out at the edges. Images from a starry night sky adorned the low slanted ceilings. Our ebony baby grand Steinway stood like a sentry in the center of the room—I played it daily. Small dressers and tables sat in corners with games of every kind piled recklessly all around.

I jolted awake, searching the room desperately. The sound of a siren in the distance could not dull the beating of my heart. The din of each beat filled my ears, making them throb.

“Edward?” I hoped. The air was suddenly tepid and silent.

The letters lay all around me like friends come to visit and comfort me. I could almost hear them whispering for me to read them, read them now before they too died. It was eleven. Night had fallen as quickly as my resurrected sadness. I began to read. Edward had chronicled much of our first year together. He wrote about the puppy he bought me, Casper, a beautiful white Siberian Husky.

“Close your eyes,” he chuckled.

“Edward, stop! You’re cheating.”

“What is it, Edward? What have you got?”

“I would never cheat,” he smirked.

“Now if I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, now would it?”

“Edward, don’t you dare lie to me. I turn my back for one second and your pawn is in another place. Put it back!”

The radio sang on as Sarah Vaughan’s Tenderly filled the room, blending in with our cadences of playfulness and love. Our laughter danced on air, echoing through the open window, down the attic stairs, into our back yard—filling our weeping willows with tears of joy.

Our uncontrollable laughter melded into dark sadness and gloom as Edward clutched his chest and tumbled to the floor gasping for air.

“Edward,” I screamed, grabbing him and pulling him to my lap.

“Baby, what’s wrong? Help! Somebody help!”

The unforgiving attic did not respond; in that moment, it did not echo. I was forced to leave my love alone while I called the paramedics. Time crawled along, moving through a second in what felt like a year. The attic stairs were too many, the phone’s ringing too long, the dispatcher too slow to take down my information, the paramedics took too long to arrive. The attic stairs they climbed became double the amount that were there before, they moved too slowly. Everything was too slow.

Even my screams as they pronounced him dead came out like a slow droning endless ripple. The frantic pitch of my voice pierced the afternoon sun as the news pierced my heart. Then all fell silent. He was dead. My lover and my friend was gone, and everything continued to drag. Nothing and no one wanted to hurry anymore. Without my Edward, my world stood still. I stood still.

The letter drifted across the floor, gathering dust as it floated across the room. I didn’t realize I had let it fall. The room went from the bright sea blue of the past, instantly back to the dark dreary gray of the present. The letters now littered the attic floor as though tossed. I gathered each one up and hastily retreated down the attic stairs to the comfort of our bedroom. Sad sleep enveloped me as I stared at the steady, hypnotizing spin of the ceiling fan.

“Marie, Marie! Wake up honey, I want to hear your beautiful voice.”

“Come on, hurry up. I wanna see.”

“Patience my dear. And no peeking.”

I remember shaking uncontrollably, nervous that he would be up to one of his tricks again. Within minutes, I heard him shuffle out the door, and shuffle back in with something that sounded like it was moving. I squealed, not sure if I should be scared, as he was always playing around and doing something outrageous.

“Okay. Calm down. Stop shaking silly!” he laughed.

“I can’t stand it anymore! What is it?”

“Okay. Open your eyes.”

The tiny white ball of fur wriggled and sniffed, licking aimlessly at anything he could reach. A muffled bark was all it took for me to break down in tears. Edward almost tumbled over as I jumped on him, kissing him all over his face. Casper became our baby, and he could do no wrong. His P.S. read, “Remember that black silk top you couldn’t find? Casper took it off to his doghouse and used it as a blanket. I didn’t have the heart to tell you.”

I found myself laughing and crying all at once, each emotion equally infecting my spirit. I read through our early life together, eagerly devouring each day and month. With each letter, I could feel Edward fill the room. I could smell his cologne, hear his laugh, see his smile and feel his mischievousness. As I held the last five letters in my hand, I could sense that something was coming. His last letter was heavy with a sadness that was perceptible, although not spoken.

He talked about his visit to the doctor, and how he hadn’t been feeling well those last few days. I began reading the next letter.

Dear Marie, The results came back from my blood work and scans. Without going into much detail my love, my heart is not working very well these days. The doctor has told me that I don’t have much more time.

I am going to die soon, and all I can think about is losing you—not living to love you more, and feel you loving me. You have given me a life that is greater than any I could ever imagine. When you finally african Voices

23

read this, know that I am watching over you. I am sitting beside you as you read this, holding you, drying your tears, and telling you how much I love you. Never doubt for a minute that I am here. Close your eyes. I am sitting beside you.

With eternal love, Edward The clock read 3am. I could hear Casper scratching at the bedroom door. He was whining as he usually did when Edward came home from work and he wanted to play. I opened the door to let him in. He ran to the window which overlooked our backyard, jumped up on the chair and began to howl. Casper had never howled before, but tonight he howled long and laborious. He then lay on the chair and slept until the sun peeked over the horizon.

It was difficult for me to understand why Edward did not tell me he was ill. We had never kept secrets. Yet here it was. A secret. A secret within a secret—letters I knew nothing about. I wasn’t sure what the last few letters would have in store for me, but I needed to find the strength to get through them. My hands shook as I reached for one. I nervously began to read yet another of my dear husband’s billets-doux.

“Marie, do you know the meaning of the claddagh?”

“What is a claddagh?”

“It is a special ring. It began with an Irish love story. It symbolizes the great love a prince had for his wife. I purchased one for you and me. I want you to wear it always. Please remember these words each time you look at it: For love, we wear the heart. In friendship, we wear the hands. And in loyalty and lasting fidelity we wear the royal claddagh.”

“Edward, I—.”

“Marie, I place it on your left hand, crown facing you, to symbolize not only that you have found your love, but that I have requited.”

As I read, my eyes blurred. The watery haze faded into the memory

24

african Voices

of that day long ago. Casper jumped onto the bed and laid his head on my lap. I looked at my hand, twisting the claddagh from left to right.

“No matter where I am, always know that I am with you. Touch this claddagh I’ve given you and chant the Namaste that says: I honor that place in you in which the entire universe dwells. I honor the place in you which is of love, of truth, of light, and of peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me; we are one.”

I cried the day he chanted those words. I cried until my eyes were red and puffy, but I was filled with happiness and content. I never took off the ring.

“Remember, Marie. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me; we are one. And I am with you.”

Casper looked up sharply at the bedroom door. I glanced around the room, feeling a warm breeze suddenly dancing around the bed, but no one was there. The curtains lifted and waved about the window frame, fanning a gentle good morning. All but one of the letters blew to the floor, as the breeze whisked through and swished them away. As they fell, tossing about in the wind, I grabbed the single letter that did not make it to the ground.

It was the letter about the claddagh. The P.S. read, “If you keep none of the other letters, Marie, keep this one. It is my gift to you, forever.” The wind continued to blow, the cardinal perched on the windowsill and sang, and that empty place in me somehow became filled.

Finally, I said good-bye and whispered, “You are with me always.”

The wind picked up and letters began to fly around the room. They flew past me like paper birds teasing me playfully. They flew everywhere, rising high into the air, near the ceiling—twirling. I tried to catch them, but they were like elusive children in a game of tag—they seemed to giggle. As I laughed, I could almost hear the laughter of another. It filled the room—the laughter, the smell of cologne, and the strength of love. Casper barked wildly.

THE SOUND OF SEKOU For Sekou Sundiata

What is the sound of one voice speaking poetry music rhythm

C. D. Grant

Does it reverberate throughout the chasm do you hear Sekou turning a phrase beating a rhythm singing our songs What is the sound of a brother who created a universal language thru his presence persona

It’s a sound silence save for recordings lingering in the ether a sound that’ll no longer create new cadences a loss of the intricate sounds that enlivened entertained protested entreated and held us in awe of this talented brother Sekou Sundiata’s sounds will live with us with us into the future with all of us

traveling for sekou sundiata neon blues captives rapturing suns and daughters for flight praying through god mics remembering you as a symbol red with early eyes for glass shielding centered scripture in a place where millions gathered to change skin to sky on that day a voice became pyramid tongues became iron all our nation turned inward like thunder coming from heartbeats giving storms legs niggas by passed that name became african again bone like babel tower dropped drones surrendering to something inside us until as one we returned

Bennie Herron 2007

african Voices

25

F E A T U R E

Andrew W. Cooper, Brooklyn’s City Son Voting Rights Activist and Journalist Transformed NY’s Political Landscape

By Wayne Dawkins

M

ost New Yorkers who remember Andrew W. Cooper should recall the feisty journalist/publisher of the weekly City Sun of Brooklyn from 1984 to 1996.

But how many people are familiar with Cooper, the voting rights activist of the 1960s who rearranged the political landscape of New York City?

In 1966, a year after the federal Voting Rights Act liberated millions of Southern Blacks, Cooper [1927-2002] was the lead plaintiff in a Northern lawsuit called Cooper vs. Power. The beer company employee alleged that New York State leaders disenfranchised African-Americans. Unlike the South, where Black citizens were rebuffed through threats of violence, intimidation, or chicanery like poll taxes and “intelligence tests” [how many jelly beans are in this jar?], Northern power brokers diluted New Yorker’s voting power.

Cooper said gerrymandering was evident in his Brooklyn neighborhood, Bedford-Stuyvesant, because the compact, quadrangle-shaped community where 80 percent of the inhabitants were African-American or Puerto Rican was somehow carved into five Congressional districts, each led by Whites.

Last May at a ceremony honoring Cooper’s activism, Basil Paterson, former New York secretary of state and before that New York City deputy mayor, explained the absurdity of the boundaries: “Andrew Cooper’s court papers declared that almost 400,000 Blacks had been partitioned among five Congressional districts in so tortuous, artificial and labyrinthine a manner that the lines are irrational and unrelated to any proper purpose.”

One of the dubious districts, said Paterson, was 11 miles long and one mile in width, and another district was 10 miles long and 300 yards wide at its narrowest point.

Another district that was nine miles long and only a quartermile wide in certain areas was led by Hugh Carey, a future governor of New York. Cooper, with Joan Bacchus Antoine Maynard [1928-2006] and Paul Kerrigan, asked the courts to restrain the political parties from conducting elections to the House of Representatives. Maynard, by the way, was a primary

26

african Voices

advocate for the preservation of Weeksville, the 19th century Free African community in Brooklyn.

“When [Andrew W. Cooper] filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court,” Paterson told well-wishers at St. Francis College of Brooklyn, “He was well aware that he was launching a missile at the powerful political forces in the city and the state, Republican and Democratic. Clearly, he [Cooper] was bold and bodacious!”

Perfect storm of protest Cooper’s timing was right to wage a Voting Rights, Northernstyle challenge to the political powers in New York. The city in the early 1960s was the new home for Southern Blacks still migrating from Atlantic Coast states such as Virginia and the Carolinas. For example, from 1910 to1930, the White population of New York City grew 41 percent, wrote Jim Sleeper in “The Closest of Strangers,” and the African-American population tripled to 328,000 inhabitants. Cooper was born during that time period, in 1927.

From 1950 to 1960, another surge of hundreds of thousands of Blacks poured into New York, including the author who was born in the city during that decade. Furthermore, Caribbean immigrants came in waves too, seeking the American dream from former British colonies-turned newly independent islands like Jamaica [1962], Trinidad and Tobago [1962], and Barbados [1966], noted C. Gerald Fraser, a longtime journalist with the New York Times and before that the New York Daily News and New York Amsterdam News. Circa 1962, Fraser was reporting on these independence movements as a free-lance United Nations correspondent.

The combined protest energy of Caribbean arrivals and Southernrooted New Yorkers, both fed up with benign yet still oppressive Northern discrimination, said Fraser, was a perfect storm of protest.

Cooper’s activism began circa 1960 inside Brooklyn’s Unity Democratic Club led by Thomas Russell Jones [1913-2006], a future state Supreme Court judge. Truth be told, Cooper, the Schaefer brewery employee who worked overnight shifts, was pushed into action by his wife Jocelyn C. Cooper. Unity

Cooper at work at Schaefer, which operated a brewery in Brooklyn until the early 1970s. Photo courtesy of Cooper family.

Democratic Club challenged the gerrymandered state of Black Brooklyn, the borough that according to U.S. Census data was more populous than Harlem, the so-called capital of Black America.

In 1964, Cooper and co-delegate Pat Carter angered Brooklyn Democratic Party leaders, said Cooper’s widow, by defying orders to cast their votes and seat the segregationist Mississippi Democratic Party at the national convention in Atlantic City.

Instead, Cooper supported the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party of Fannie Lou Hamer and other insurgents. According to Sleeper, the well-organized Harlem political machine led by Raymond “Harlem Fox” Jones made a tactical error in not supporting the multiracial Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

The summer that Cooper attended the Democratic National Convention, Congress passed the modern-day Civil Rights Act and President Johnson signed the bill and made it law.

By 1965, Cooper was an outcast from the local Democratic Party for his act of rebellion in Atlantic City. Instead of backing the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York that year, Cooper, his wife, Carter and other dissidents threw their support to John V. Lindsay, a liberal Republican. Lindsay won and maintained warm relations with Black constituents. Lindsay championed programs for the poor and opened satellite offices to work with youth, wrote Larry McShane of the Associated Press. Lindsay [1921-2000] served two terms, 1965-1969 and 1969-1973.

The summer before Lindsay was elected mayor, Congress and the president on Aug. 6 approved the Voting Rights Act, intended primarily to protect Southern Black citizens from violence and chicanery when they tried to vote. In June 1966, less than a year since the act became law, Cooper tested its enforcement power in court. Cooper and his co-plaintiffs filed suit, then a three-judge federal court heard the case in 1967.

In December 1967, the courts ruled and ordered statewide redistricting.

Redistricting normally is done by state legislatures shortly after the new U.S. Census is tabulated each decade. In the case of Brooklyn and New York State, they were ordered to go back and redraw districts that would be compact and also eliminate gerrymandering, which Cooper had said occurred in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

In March 1968, New York’s legislature created a new 12th Congressional District in Brooklyn. That spring, Shirley Chisholm, a state Assemblywoman who with Cooper once belonged to Unity Democratic Club, announced she would run for the new seat.

Chisholm, the Democrat, defeated James Farmer, a civil rights icon affiliated with the Congress of Racial Equality [CORE], however in New York, he was a Black GOP candidate imported to contest Chisholm for the seat. That November, Chisholm won by a 2 1/2 to 1 ratio and made history as the first African-American woman elected to Congress. Her election also gave New York african Voices

27

Andrew W. Cooper, Brooklyn’s City Son State a second majority-Black Congressional district.

of the New York delegation is Andrew W. Cooper’s handiwork.

Chisholm [1924-2005] would hold the seat for 14 years until 1982 then she was succeeded by Major R. Owens, Cooper’s peer during the Lindsay era. When Owens decided to vacate the seat in 2006, a multi-candidate race rich with irony ensued.

What was next for AWC?

Reconstituted as the 11th Congressional District because of

So what happened to Andrew Welles Cooper in the late 1960s?

While Chisholm was running for Congress, Cooper ran for state Senator to the New York Legislature. He finished second [36 percent of votes] to winner Waldaba Stewart [41 percent] in a three-way race for a Brooklyn seat that also included candidate V.L. Johnson [23 percent].

After his defeat, Cooper continued to work at the Schaefer brewery. He was promoted to director of community affairs and succeeded Andy Stanfield, an African-American and two-time Olympic runner. Cooper organized the Schaefer “Circle of Stars” and booked top entertainers — such as Patti LaBelle — who are today’s R&B icons.

Cooper’s burning love of politics and activism did not abate.

From left, Cooper, Mayor John V. Lindsay and Pat Carter. Photo courtesy of Cooper family. demographic changes, there was the strong possibility that a White candidate could win in the district that included BedfordStuyvesant and make history as the first Caucasian representative in nearly 40 years. That issue was settled in the September Democratic Primary when Yvette Clarke, a Black woman, narrowly beat three candidates who all earned at least a 20-percent share of votes. Clarke was the shoo-in winner in the November general election.

In all, when Chisholm was elected, there were 10 AfricanAmerican members of Congress. New York joined Michigan as states with more than one Black U.S. Representative. Single representatives were in Illinois, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri. There was also one African-American U.S. Senator, Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts.

Today, there is still a lone Black U.S. Senator, Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and 42 other African-American members of Congress, including four U.S. Representatives from New York. The doubling

28

african Voices

In 1976, he began writing a political column for the New York Amsterdam News called “One Man’s Opinion.” That arrangement lasted about six months. Cooper complained that some of his columns were spiked when he criticized the performance of African-American politicians, sacred cows at New York’s leading Black newspaper.

In fact, on this 30th anniversary year of the New York summer blackout that resulted in the trashing of African-American neighborhoods, Amsterdam News co-publisher John Procope said in a 1977 editorial that there was a “massive vacuum of leadership in the Black communities across the city” and since Black community leaders “hadn’t exercised real leadership prior to the blackout, there was no established communication with our young people to use as a base for communication when the looters began.”

During that “Summer of Sam,” the crazy time of .44 caliber killer David Berkowitz, the other “Bronx Zoo,” Reggie Jackson, Billy Martin, George Steinbrenner and his New York Yankees, and a crowded, contentious mayoral election that included candidate Percy Sutton and climaxed in the election of Ed Koch, Cooper launched Trans Urban News Service in Brooklyn. Cooper, with Amsterdam News expatriate Utrice C. Leid, intended to run TNS as a training ground for aspiring journalists of color in order to integrate the daily media. The news service produced stories for

Voting Rights Activist and Journalist Transformed NY’s Political Landscape primary clients the Amsterdam News, New York Daily News, New York Times and WCBS-News radio 88.

In 1980, Trans Urban News Service won the top award from the Public Relations Society of America for its 1979 multipart series published in the Amsterdam News on African-American-Jewish racial tension in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights. This recognition was nearly 15 years before that neighborhood became nationally known because of another flashpoint in Black-Jewish relations.

In addition, in 1978 and 1979, Cooper and Village Voice political writer Wayne Barrett collaborated on several pieces for that alternative weekly including, “Koch’s War on the Poor,” and “Chisholm’s Compromise.” In the latter piece, Cooper told his story of the landmark voting rights lawsuit that bore his name, and a defensive Chisholm fenced with Cooper about her performance as a Congresswoman. Cooper wrote that Chisholm’s “unbought and unbossed” rhetoric did not square with her record: “In her two books, “Unbought and Unbossed” and “The Good Fight,” — Chisholm portrays herself as an outspoken, independent force in politics who makes no deals. She’s not. If she hadn’t asked us to expect so much, maybe we wouldn’t find it so difficult to accept her as she really is.

“She is not a venal woman. She’s never ripped off community programs, never demanded a cut for herself in patronage or graft.

That makes her an unusual politician— Black or White. Her rhetoric and her votes on national issues are usually sound. She has the capacity to make poor people, women and Blacks, believe in themselves, at least when she isn’t just trying to get them to believe in her.

“But she has based her political career on a fundamental compromise. She has disguised that compromise with the brilliance of her rhetoric. Only a careful examination of the consistency of her entire political life reveals that compromise.”

Trans Urban News Service’s Writers Workshop trained scores of journalists who went on to work in mainstream and ethnic media, yet Cooper was restless and wanted a bolder media outlet to tell stories of Black New York. Market research he commissioned also suggested that metropolitan New York hungered for a strong Black media voice.

The Sun rises in Brooklyn In June 1984, he launched The City Sun. The inaugural cover story was “Death of a Generation,” written by Errol Louis, now a New York Daily News op-ed columnist. He reported that 54 percent of New York City’s Black males ages 16 to 19 were unemployed; 14 percent of Black men ages 20-plus were jobless, and the city’s 42-percent high school dropout rate was extreme at four schools in predominantly Black neighborhoods. “They [Cooper and Utrice Leid] asked for it,” Louis told me in 2005. “The story set the pace for what was at stake.”

The early City Sun formula was an oversize black mast-

head accessorized with a red streamer that mimicked the city’s bare-knuckled tabloids, the Daily News and New York Post, liberal use of wide-angle photos, an eclectic mix of stories about Black New York life, regular Caribbean and Africa news pages, a copious arts and culture section led by critic Armond White and arts writer Fern Gillespie, and an out-of-the box sports section edited by Anthony Carter “Tony” Paige, now a sportscaster with WFAN-AM. In addition, there were Cooper and Leid’s often scorched-earth editorials inside the newspaper, and occasionally on the cover, like the “Love for Sale” cover of June 10, 1987 that had a political cartoon depicting four Black women inside a kissing booth representing local civil rights organizations, all accepting money from men representing Citicorp, multinational corporations, Coors, Mayor Koch, Gov. Mario Cuomo and Frank Sinatra. The “Love for Sale” kissing booth’s motto was “Compromised positions, our specialty!” The accompanying editorial began this way: “Black pride, self-respect, a commitment to the downtrodden, a deeply-rooted sense of history, an unshakable faith in the ideals our forebears stood for and died for, an abiding spirit of brotherhood, a strict adherence to principle and mission. These were some of the nobler characteristics that organizations and individuals who profess to represent our interests once stood for. But times have changed and the politics of compromise, the policy of sellout, seems to be the order of the day. It is no longer a grotesque sideshow; it has become the norm, a presumed part of a trihedral love-for-sale relationship in which two parties conspire against the interests of the third—- that third party being the Black community.”

Indeed, the newspaper’s motto was “Speaking truth to power,” a phrase borrowed from the Quakers.

Five weeks after publishing began — on Independence Day — the City Sun used its front page and several inside pages to reprint Frederick Douglass’ 1841 criticism of American enslavement of most Blacks. By fall 1984, the paper relentlessly covered the cop killing of Eleanor Bumpers, an elderly and disabled AfricanAmerican woman who was shot multiple times after a confrontation with authorities during an attempted eviction.

The City Sun, true to Cooper’s roots as a community activist, broke a taboo of many Black newspapers — it criticized AfricanAmerican politicians whenever convinced that their behavior was venal, lazy or self-serving. “Cooper was a true journalist in the truest essence of reporting” explained Milton Allimadi, a former City Sun reporter who now edits the Black Star News. “`A story is a story,’ Cooper would say. `If a guy is a brother or a sister, we’re going after them. I’m not into coddling.’”

Criticize and scold, yes, however, unlike too many Black newspapers, the City Sun invested serious time and resources to cover Black politicians. For example, the paper staffed correspondent Clinton Cox in Albany and he wrote long-form dispatches that put

african Voices

29

Andrew W. Cooper, Brooklyn’s City Son breaking stories into a historical context. From Washington, D.C., correspondent Isaiah Poole covered national politics, like the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco when Jesse Jackson made his first of several runs for U.S. president.

Managing editor Utrice Leid recruited Hugh Hamilton, a Guyana-based foreign correspondent, to the City Sun in the late 1980s, and he became the Caribbean affairs editor. Hamilton wrote two remarkable special reports, “Exiles No More,” a 32-page special report about the Haitian Diaspora that ran June 6, 1990 in the sixth anniversary edition and carried reporting and photography from New York, Miami and Hispaniola [Haiti and the Dominican Republic]. He also wrote “Uptown Eco Blues” June 5, 1991, a graphically visual 24-page special report about environmental degradation in Harlem.

Hamilton currently is host of “Talkback” on WBAI-FM. The City Sun earned editorial praise. Cooper was named National Association of Black Journalists “Journalist of the Year” in 1987. Arts Critic Armond White was chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle in 1994, no small feat for a 20,000 circulation weekly in the same metropolis as the New York Times, Daily News, New York Post, Newsday, Village Voice and Amsterdam News.

Jacqueline McMickens, a Brooklyn attorney and former Corrections Department official during the Koch administration, told me that she bought bulk copies of the City Sun for sale in the commissary. The clearly-written articles and visually attractive presentation, said McMickens, enlightened and empowered inmates and employees.

For the larger New York community she said, “Andy was always on the pulse. Nothing escaped him. He wasn’t scared to write about anything. I would tell people if you don’t buy the City Sun, you don’t know what’s going on. You became literally educated.

“It pains me to this day that we don’t have a newspaper like that.”

McMickens, an Alabama native, said Cooper had the fighting spirit of an earlier Black newspaper editor, Emory O. Jackson of the Birmingham World in the 1950s and 1960s. Jackson’s feats were chronicled in “The Race Beat” by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, winners of this year’s Pulitzer-Prize for history.

Sunset and the AWC legacy Yet journalistic excellence was not enough to sustain The

30

african Voices

City Sun. It was a financially troubled enterprise from its launch in 1984 and it endured bankruptcies in 1990 and 1992. When managing editor Leid left the paper at the end of 1992 after a disagreement with Cooper, the City Sun was clearly wounded.

In October 1996, city marshals showed up at Court Street offices and evicted the staff as it was working on the next edition.

An attempt to revive The City Sun as an online newspaper in 1997 failed because family members and investors could not agree on terms.

In early 1997, a group of former City Sun staffers met with Cooper and his wife Jocelyn and received their approval to attempt an employee-owned revival of the paper. Maitefa Angaza, the paper’s executive editor in its final days, former managing editor Rhea Mandulo, Allimadi, White, reporter Marjorie Harris and others, attempted to raise money through public forums and art auctions. However, the funds generated barely met the modest expense of producing and publicizing the events. Louis lent advice and made some phone calls for the group as they sought cornerstone investors. He told Angaza and Mandulo that investors were shying away from the declining industry and predicted that newspapers would begin to give their editions away for free on the streets of New York City.

The Andrew W. Cooper and City Sun spirit lives on.

Daughter Andrea Cooper Andrews and widow Jocelyn C. Cooper established the Andrew W. Cooper Young Journalists In Training Program at St. Francis College of Brooklyn. Last May, nine students — six women and three men — were the first winners of media internships. The Coopers and the college, led by President Frank Macchiarola, are raising money in order to endow the Young Journalists in Training Program.

African Voices Publisher Carolyn A. Butts told me that Cooper was generous in counseling her on how to launch her magazine in the 1990s. Maitefa Angaza is now its managing editor. The Cooper spirit lives on in others.

Wayne Dawkins was a reporter/researcher with Trans Urban News Service from 1977-79. The author of several books on the National Association of Black Journalists is an assistant professor at the Hampton University Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications. He co-produced the New Media project “Voting Rights, Northern Style,” www.nbpc.tv/hbcu

Poem for Sekou Sundiata

by Louis Reyes Rivera

How close and steadfast we were 38, 39 years from college students raising heaven’s bar to poets two (or were there 30?) settling for guerilla war no matter how much time between us lapsed how obvious our sharing so much that even those who called themselves your comrades true knew my loss acknowledging the substance we both had placed upon our table It must be the smiles we often shared and the teasing and the ribbing we engaged whenever we embraced slapped hands and joked about the fact that we’re still here in the midst of someone else’s social order It must be those quick quips between us the quicker retorts the genuine laughter that boomed and roared from the snort of a bull intending and the jaws of a lion stalking we never did contend never circled ‘round whatever ground or space both or either would claim as mine

It must’ve been the witnessed warmth flowing from our eyes dancing with pride just because we know each other just because once again, however rare, we’ll meet and sit together and in the midst of our own company openly share a microphonic stage a barstool sip a buffet table all laid out the union and reunion of students two becoming poets still groping with their muse like youngsters searching for a niche unique and personal It had to be that look of deep regard those levels of genuine respect gleaming from the center of both our eyes grinning wide and in the midst of any crowd all egos ebbing, never interfering, as two strong men stop what they are doing long enough to grasp and clasp each other’s palms and ask out loud, Yo, man, how you doing?

now, like Zizwe, you left me here with no one else to deliver me a eulogy.

african Voices

31

To Sekou Sundiata

Sundiata was with us before (the same) as he is with us now, the same as before, the same as now a great poet the same as now.

His intelligence gave him the veracity to speak to us, the same as before, when he lived in time, the same as now.

Teaching: means overcoming being separated from God, how the enemy always has taught our children to be only not like Sekou (he) who knew translation or dematerialization to go straight to this Heaven from this Earth. and never fall.

Reach to that level, own consciousness where really there is no orthodox teaching.

Don’t be “taken up” by the fall of Man, Sundiata said.

Don’t be given “up” to the sensuality of deceit

© Henry Grimes, 7-27-O7

32

african Voices

the same as before, the same as now.

One Good Kidney, One Great Heart for Sekou Sundiata On a river of words a prince became a poet.

His voice a soft sweet song in the silk of his soul, the dark night come to life pregnant with meaning and sunlight.

He overturned things with what he knew.

He wasn’t just somebody or any body-body-body.

He became me, you, all of us turning words around at the bridge.

Crossing.

Crossing over, again and again.

A prince became a poet a river turned into ocean a great sea, a seer, a beacon.

We listened because we love birdsongs that fly free.

He took us on the journey thru his dream-state, the fifty-first nation of the birth of consciousness.

Lifted us higher than we had ever dared to venture.

Painted word-murals in each of his metered sighs.

See, he knew who he was born to be, a prince turned into poet who could decipher how the day lived in the night and lived in each other in turns overturning, returning, burning with passion.

Turned words into reparations for all we had lost, named names, walked the path like a price who chose carefully and diligently, respecting the balance of gender, bringing love back to the table.

This prince, he overturned things.

So many that we are left in great emptiness now that he is gone.

Reminding us, remembering, Sekou. Poet.

© 2007 Sandra María Esteves

This prince born in the thick of Black history, Southern pride, apartheid, lynchings of Nubian innocence, Brooklyn and Boogie-Down, had stories to tell about who done did what to who and you, and me, and you, and you, and you…

african Voices

33

B O O K S

Kwanzaa: from holiday to everyday Following is an excerpt from the just-published book, Kwanzaa: From Holiday to Everyday, Dafina Books (ISBN13: 978-0-7582-1665-6). Maitefa Angaza, managing editor of African Voices, inspires readers to transform their holiday observance into a joyous, year-round commitment. It also serves as a how-to for both newcomers and veterans planning celebrations and provides history, songs, recipes, sources for Kwanzaa-table items, gift ideas and public Kwanzaa celebrations nationwide and outside of the U.S. The book is illustrated by the gifted Jimmy James Greene.

Readers meet people who have put the principles of this 41-year-old celebration into daily practice, as well as the woman who hosted the very fist Kwanzaa in her living-room! This excerpt illustrates one of several ways in which the Seven Principles are addressed, in this case, the Fourth Principle of Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics). Visit www.kwanzaabook.com for information and discussion throughout the year.

Ujamaa 365 — Cooperative Economics Every Day

Maitefa Angaza, author.

* Refuse to support businesses or industries that disrespect you, misrepresent your interests or take your patronage for granted, be they Black-owned or other. Don’t finance misogyny, criminality, buffoonery or depravity and then wonder why things aren’t better. * Don’t try to buy self-esteem — it’s not for sale. No amount of bling, arm candy or auto candy, overpriced clothes or high-roller gift-giving will compensate for the damage done to a people told they weren’t valuable or beautiful enough just as God made them. Some of us have had additional injury inflicted by abusive or incompetent parents. If you need therapy spend some money on that, and if you can’t afford it, join a support group or buy self-help books before allowing debt to ruin you. * Don’t listen to people who say that Ujamaa is an idea whose time has come and gone. They wouldn’t go to Chinatown or to an Hasidic neighborhood, for example, and tell the residents that patronizing one another’s businesses is passé. Neither do they offer proven alternatives for achieving the quality of self-sufficiency that these communities enjoy. * Feel a sense of urgency. In many areas our children cannot find employment where they live or, as they grow older, rent an apartment in the neighborhood in which they were raised. Refuse to contribute to the marginalization of your people through willful ignorance of the effects of your economic decisions.

Ujamaa Works

Book excerpt: Reprinted by arrangement with Kensington Publishing Corp.

All rights reserved. www.kensingtonbooks.com

34

african Voices

* Karibu Books opened with $500 in 1993 as a street-vending business in Washington, D.C. Today it is a chain of six stores, including those in Arlington, Virginia and Baltimore, Maryland. It carries over 8,000 titles and hosts over 600 authors a year. (karibubooks.com) * The International African Arts Festival started as a block-party fundraiser with vendor’s tables in Brooklyn, New York. Thirty-six years later, it has grown into a five-day event with attendees, performers and merchants coming faithfully each year from across the country, from Africa and the Caribbean. The community patronizes the more than 250 vendors and that money circulates more than once around the Festival to other

vendors. Merchants have used their earnings to pay college tuition or to make the down- payment on a storefront. A few nationally-known businesses, including the natural toiletries company, Carol’s Daughter and designer clothing line Moshood, were Festival merchants in their infancy. (www.iaafestival.org) * Walter Mosley stunned the publishing world in 1997 when, in the midst of blockbuster success, he allowed tiny Black Classic Press to reap the financial rewards of publishing Gone Fishin’, the next novel in his Easy Rawlins mystery series.

He said he did it to challenge other successful African Americans to do likewise and has since published, “What Next: A Memoir Toward World Peace” with Black Classic as well. Mosley had been preceded decades earlier, by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, who, having just published her most commercially successful book, turned to Dudley Randall’s tiny, Black-owned Broadside Press to publish her next work and then reinvested her royalties back into his company. She would later publish with Haki Madhubuti’s Third World Press as well. (www.blackclassic.com) * Recently, Tavis Smiley, an author and television and radio host, collaborated with prolific writer and vocal Princeton University professor Cornel West, on a book entitled, The Covenant with Black America, which offers a treatise and 10-point action plan for the problems African Americans face. Smiley had intended before starting the book to go with a Black publisher, and he chose Third World Press. Due to Smiley’s reach as an on-air personality, West’s high public profile, and a nationwide “town hall meeting” tour, “The Covenant” placed at No. 1 on Amazon.com and on the Barnes and Nobles and Borders lists and No. 6 on the New York Times bestseller list. The book is paying off for the authors, for their highly appreciative publishing company, and for readers, who are well-served by a concrete example of Ujamaa. (www.thirdworldpressinc.com).

A critical take on the tour is at http:// www.afro-netizen.com/2006/03/ talented_tenth_.html.

african Voices

35

Onaje Allan Gumbs, Carmen de Lavallade, Judith Jamison, Cheryl Woodruff, Terry McMillan, Tom Burrell, Ruby Dee, Tavis Smiley, Iyanla Vanzant, Dr. Cornel West and Elinor Hinton Hoytt. Photo by Jefry Andres Wright.

36

african Voices

The first time I heard Sekou sing his words was at a café called The Corner Post His velvet voice dipped below rumbling concrete shot up through the crowd

Corner Post Café – Brooklyn 1977

It became church on DeKalb Avenue Who was this handsome, dreadlocked giant pulling me into his web of sound?

That was my first time & like Sekou felt when he first heard Coltrane blow I thought I had to belong to a club if I wanted to hear that sound again!

Long before BeBe’s Kids were born Sekou doubled my name Said words were sound & meaning & meaning sound that words had arms & legs that words charged air that words shook sensibilities that words could twist or doubletime doubletime or twist Like hands slapping cowhide slapping backside slapping thighs slapping tambourines shake shaking Like glad hands coming together Clap, clapping Clap, clapping That our words could change the world

©2007 by Brenda Connor-Bey

For 30 years after that no more café He spiraled upward on a ladder to heaven Becoming wingbeats we will always hear His words changed our world May the Creator allow us to keep alive all that you’ve done, Sekou. Thank you.

african Voices

37

F I C T I O N

Mama Kwanzaa & Her Seven Children

By Ibi Aanu Zoboi African Voices is pleased to present this fable for parents and educators to share with children during the holiday season and beyond.

T

ime was, somewhere far beyond the light of the moon, someplace far beyond the warmth of the sun, sat an old woman, older than time itself, surrounded by all the fruits and vegetables that ever were. She sat high above the dark expanse of space with the stars at her fingertips, rubbing elbows with galaxies, and playing marbles with planets. At her feet were all the food that her favorite planet in the whole universe had ever bore.

It was a harvest of sweet things and sour things, juicy things and dry things, bright things and ugly things.

The old woman smiled to herself at the wonder of the universe and the bounty of her favorite place, planet Earth. Earth was a beautiful little ball of blues and greens and browns, reaping the very finest of foods. She eased towards her favorite planet Earth peeking a gleaming eye down at the little world and with a steady hand and the precision of her index finger and thumb she picked her lovely fruits and vegetables one by one and placed them in her universe.

There, next to Jupiter, where the hem of her long star-speckled black dress slightly touched its rings, she placed a single yam from below the rich soil of her planet Earth. And next to the yam was a potato as brown and smooth as the old woman’s velvety skin. Next came a rutabaga and then a beet. A bunch of orange carrots added just a touch of splendor to the already vibrant expanse of her space. And there was still more room for her harvest to encircle her completely, just as the galaxies near and far spun magical stardust around her head, forming the gray halo that is the old woman’s hair.

There next to Mars she tossed complimenting red cherries, strawberries, and raspberries. With her large, strong, yet soft hands she opened a watermelon, revealing its joyous red heart spewing black seeds that ballroom-danced with silver stars to celebrate her harvest. There, next to Venus were the lettuce, the spinach, the collards, and the kales. The leaves adorned the planet in all shades of green making it appear to be the only living tree in all of outer space—as if the universe had become Earth itself.

The old woman was proud. She sat and watched her harvest.

She stared with a smile at the beauty of her creation. No, she was not stealing from the wonderful planet Earth and its beautiful inhabitants. She was merely taking a sample of what she had created. She picked of each fruit and of each vegetable and exam-

38

african Voices

ined them closely, making sure that all the right seeds and right flavors and right colors were in place. And maybe she did want to make her universe look like her favorite planet Earth.

She already had her sun, much bigger in her space, shining warmer and brighter. Of course the stars were forever present, twinkling and winking just the same. And her fruits and vegetables were all her own. With them she could make a planet look like a tree, just as she did with Venus. And she could line all the root vegetables in rows and rows to make the ground. Indeed she would sit on the ground and eat her harvest and bathe in the sun and enjoy all the wonders of her favorite planet Earth.

But there was something missing.

Was her favorite planet Earth only made of trees and fruits and vegetables and the warm light of her sun? There was something more about her favorite planet Earth. There were moving things and breathing things, laughing things and crying things, dancing things and singing things. These moving, breathing, laughing, crying, dancing, and singing things were much like her fruits and vegetables—all in different shapes and sizes and colors. They were not her things, of course.

The old woman was Mama Kwanzaa, mother of the first harvest—the universal mother of fruits from the trees and vegetables from the soil of the Earth. And these she made for the people and animals of the Earth, the moving breathing, laughing, crying, dancing, and singing things. This was where all her fruits and vegetables went! This was what was missing in her universe — People!

She wanted people around her to share in the bounty of fruits and vegetables in her universe. But people belonged on her favorite planet Earth, just as the fruits belonged on the trees and not floating with the stars, and the vegetables belonged in the soil and not bouncing off planets.

The old woman was not the maker of people and animals. She was not even the maker of planets and the universe. She was Mama Kwanzaa, maker of the first harvest. Although she was only the maker of the first harvest, she was a maker nonetheless.

She could make anything she pleased, yes indeed! Just as she nourished the people and animals of her favorite planet Earth, just as she made her fruits and vegetables dance in her universe, she

the reflection of her face—a beautiful deep brown like the soil of her favorite planet Earth dotted with gleaming speckles.

She smiled like the radiant sun shining light upon the planets in her universe. She would make it to resemble herself!

The old woman clasped both hands and inside, the sparkling mass of stardust, stars, and firelight spun around and around. She opened her hands and the circling fireball rose into the vast expanse of space and broke into seven smaller fireballs. Each of the seven fireballs spun around and around, faster and faster until one by one, the spinning slowed and like a blossoming Earth flower, each fireball transformed into a beautiful human being! Seven spinning fireballs made of stardust, stars, and firelight became the human beings, the seven children of the old woman, Mama Kwanzaa. The children floated in the vast expanse of space before the star-speckled mother with a bounty of fruits and vegetables around her dress.

Illustration by Joseph Zoboi

could make people too!

There, with the stardust particles from Saturn’s rings, some firelight from the hot shining sun, and a handful of blazing stars, she rolled in the large and strong palms of her hands, her first creation.

What should it look like? Should it resemble a fruit or vegetable?

Maybe it should be like a strawberry with a red heart for a face, tiny seeds as freckles and a leafy tuft for hair. Or maybe it should resemble a pumpkin—orange, plump, round, and full of joy.

The old woman opened her hands and looked into the sparkling mass of stardust, stars, and firelight. There she could see

One by one, with the ancient Eastern African Swahili tongue, Mama Kwanzaa named her children.

“You, my first son,” Mama Kwanzaa pointed to the first boy. “You, I am naming Umoja.

Umoja, you are responsible for your six brothers and sisters. You are to keep them unified. You are to keep all things unified. Just as the planets rotate around the sun at the same time, you are responsible for all things moving as one. You, my son Umoja, are unity.” Mama Kwanzaa reached down and kissed her first son Umoja on the forehead.

Another energetic boy whirled around his six brothers and sisters before stopping in front of his Mama Kwanzaa with a smile just as big and bright as hers. The boy stuck his chest out in pride

african Voices

39

and said, “Mama, I can name myself!”

“Why, aren’t you a bold little one!” Mama Kwanzaa replied.

“Very well, then. What is your name?”

“I am Kujichagulia!” the boy exclaimed. “But you, Mama, can call me Kuji for short.”

The old woman laughed. “Kuji, my proud son, it is! You can name yourself, so it is you who is to make sure that all things and people can name themselves.”

“Forgive him mother,” a tall girl flew gracefully over to her Mama Kwanzaa. “Our brother Kuji will insist on speaking when it is not appropriate. I apologize for him for being so disrespectful, mother.”

“No, no, no. It is all right. I made him that way. He is right.

His name is Kujichagulia, the self-determined one. And you, my dear, are Ujima,” said Mama Kwanzaa, patting the pretty girl on her head. “You will make sure your sisters and brothers work together and are responsible for each other. I’m sure you will do a fine job.”

“Speaking of work and jobs, mother,” a skinny boy slowly floated over to his Mama Kwanzaa. “What will we do on your favorite planet Earth? How will we eat? Where will we live?

Surely you cannot provide everything for us because we will be down there while you are up here. Tell me, mother, how we will support ourselves?”

“You have quite a brilliant mind, my third son,” said Mama Kwanzaa. “You are right. Though I am your mother, I cannot always provide for you. Though I am the mother of the first harvest, eating of the fruits and vegetables of the Earth is not all that you will do. You, my son, I will name Ujamaa. You will make sure that your brothers and sisters can sustain themselves by sharing their gifts so the world will in turn share with them.”

A short and stocky girl came whirling towards her Mama Kwanzaa and asked, “Mother, who am I and what will I do?”

“Ahh, little one. I think you already know what you will do. But I will tell you who you are. You are Nia. You have purpose and you know what that purpose is.”

“I am purpose, mother.”

“Yes. And that you are,” Mama Kwanzaa replied. Then she looked down at a quiet little boy sitting cross-legged floating a short distance away from the rest of his brothers and sisters. He was focusing all his attention on something happening in the palm of his hands. He did not even notice that all eyes were on him.

“My fourth son, what in the universe are you doing?” Mama Kwanzaa asked.

The startled boy looked up and showed his Mama Kwanzaa what he held in his hands. It was a sparkling cluster of stardust, stars and firelight. “Mama Kwanzaa, there are only seven of

40

african Voices

us,” said the boy. “I want to make one, two, and three more brothers and sisters. But I’ve been trying and trying but nothing has happened.”

“Well aren’t you the creative one!” said Mama Kwanzaa. “I’m afraid you cannot make your own brothers and sisters. But I will show you what you can make. Take the stardust, stars and firelight you have in your hand and blow them out into the universe, and you will see what you have created.”

The boy did exactly what his mother told him to do. He blew the sparkling cluster out of his hands and it formed a dazzling cloud in front of him and his brothers and sisters. The dazzling cloud of stardust, stars, and firelight formed six letters that spelled K-U-U-M-B-A. “Kuumba!” the boy exclaimed. “I am Kuumba, the creative one.”

All was quiet once more until Mama Kwanzaa spotted her seventh and last child—a shy little girl looking down at the space below her. “My child, what is the matter?”

“Mother, I do not understand why you made us. Look at all that you have around you. You are the great mother of the first harvest.

Why do want us little children? What can our little bodies and our weak human strength do?” the little shy girl asked.

“My dear daughter, you ask such harsh questions. Look at your brothers and sisters. Look at yourself. There is nothing little nor weak about you. I made you, therefore you are magnificent! Just as seeds are perfectly nestled within the womb of a fruit, just as the apples fall at the most exact moment, you are made with special gifts and talents.”

“But look at me, mother! I am not as beautiful as the twinkling stars. I do not make planets whirl around the sun.”

“Then you, my child, are named Imani because you must have faith that you are all things powerful. You, my child, must believe with your great big heart that you and your brothers and sisters can do anything.”

Mama Kwanzaa looked at all her seven children with pride. She smiled to herself quietly knowing that these seven children were not solely hers. Although she picked of each fruit and vegetable from her favorite planet Earth and left the rest to the inhabitants, she knew she could not do the same with her seven children.

She sighed deeply and said, “Nguzo Saba. Though there are seven of you, you shall act as one. And I give you the one name Nguzo Saba for all seven of you. You are my seven children sent by me, your Mama Kwanzaa, to bring unity, self-determination, cooperation, self-sufficiency, purpose, creativity, and faith to my favorite planet Earth.

“Go forth my children. Bring umoja, kujichagulia, ujima, ujamaa, nia, kuumba, and imani!

Sekou Trane and Monk Sitting here grooving to Monk and Trane

In walks Sekou talkin’ bout happy holidays

What’s so happy? I say

Ain’t no holiday for me I don’t get paid

We call that a forced day off

Anyway cool! I’ll see you in JanuaryDah dah doo dah dah……. Ya diggg

Blues in the Abstract Truth For Sekou & Kazi

We walk silently holding hands Words are expressed through our fingers Tips touching and such Our memory speaks of pain

It is faith that keeps us upright We look at each other Smile and claim victory

Ted Wilson

Traveling Song

for Sekou

Last night in the park Odetta sang Alabama Bound, and I thought I saw your hat Moving through the crowd, and I thought I heard you call for a second microphone and Everything just got so still. And Odetta sang That traveling song, and the glare From her white dress made me close my eyes.

And the white boy made that stride piano Sound like a train moving through the dark, And Odetta did like she was waving from A window, and you were coming down the aisle.

Last stop, you whispered, without slowing down.

Mervyn Taylor, 7/21/07

african Voices

41

Rippling voice of a Man called Blessed: Hymn

By Nicole Duncan-Smith

Sekou filled space with the sacred Logos of Truth Like scriptures to the melody of a polyrhythmic Heart And I was able to close my eyes and have church with that song He was the rippling voice of a peopled called Blessed: Hymn Who said you had to be old and sanctified to and stuck in the first pew With a massive steeple over head to catch the Holy Ghost and Bare Witness Why, Brother Sekou bore witness like old time religion with the echoes of ancestors dipping his words in Baptizing crusades to stop plain folk stupidity walking on the waters of rhyme like a rhythm lost in time And a forgotten notion of I can’t!

Cause He did. And he still does but now with a chorus of elders chanting along side of him Great Griots, And Orators, And Fly Queens from Africa that he never knew but Loved Anyway Watching the replay of Maafa in the Tivo of Eternity And saying Damn, even my words came short...

As we continue to believe his greatest sermons have been preached in Terra Ferma for us to “Shout Amen” It was A MAN worth shouting for His execution of genius was worth shouting for And we will miss that...Always... the rippling voice of a man called Blessed We will miss Hymn

42

african Voices

Reel Sisters of the Diaspora The Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival celebrated its 10th anniversary in September at Long Island University’s Kumble Theater located on the Brooklyn Campus. Cinematic works by more than 30 women filmmakers hailing from India to Brooklyn were screened, there was an award ceremony, a 10-year restrospective, lectures and demonstrations, a performance by the Double Dutch Divas and a fabulous ‘70s hair and fashion show by Khamit Kinks salon. Many thanks are due to all those who helped to make it a success, including our gracious hosts, our small and hard-working committee and our thoughtful volunteers.

Irene Cara, recipient of the Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Trailblazer Award 2007, with Carolyn A. Butts, Reel Sisters co-founder/African Voices publisher.

Photo by Barry Jamison

Arts promoter Kojo Ade accepts a special appreciation award as Brooklyn Councilwoman Letitia James looks on.

Photo by Barry Jamison

Filmmaker Marcia Fingal accepts documentary award for Hurricane Katrina: Life After the Storm.

Reel Sisters curator Myla Churchill applauds.

Photo by Barry Jamison

african Voices

43

Spirit Rising Amurá Oña

Spirit rising Circling like a hawk Screeching out a soulful prayer For the rest of us Cause you be free Wings spread from sunrise Arcing over high noon

Onward to sunset Glancing back As if back held memories Eyeing forward As if forward held dreams yet to be fulfilled Oh great spirit bird Sekou Sundiata Child of Heru Afrika’s son Whose words flowed unending like the source of the Nile From a high place From a secret place From a place full and un-emptied If wonders could wonder And echoes echo And vibrations vibrate Into me and we Causing us To question those questions As to what to do With the doing that we do And the how of how we handle

The NOT hearing Of your voice

Deeply stirring

Out the fire In your soul In this age of recorded images And re-regurgitated sounds We can only taste a flavor of you But your laughter in our midst The gleam in your eye The tempo that marked your time Will remain as treasured hieroglyphics Within this and every temple you have passed through

44

african Voices

Blessings for your walk amongst us Blessings for the mirror you mirrored in us For your time spent in

Finding a path into our time

With purposeful prose For challenging mind and thought With word and song

Rhythm and cadence For syncopated syntax unearthing forgotten memories

Memories buried neath a silence We’ve come to worship Your passage leaves us empty

Scrambling for remnants

For we are not finished with you

And yet you filled us more than our imaginings Sekou, ancestor anew Legacy will caress you and guide you home Libations offered and yesterdays rekindled For you are a song well sung

And your chorus remains We will hear you in dreams

In spirit

In the stained-glass mirror life holds up to us As we rally round in love to heal this wound

That you knew we needed to heal so long ago Peace my brother Now and then We may catch you in glimpses A spirit rising Circling like a hawk Screeching out a soulful prayer For the rest of us Cause you be free

Cause you be free

how you gon be a poet, mister talkin bout verses ‘n rhyme streets ‘n peoples ‘n things? how you gon be a poet, while people be thinkin they billie holiday songs and superfly heroes that can’t even show up when a poor dude needs a quarter for some taste or some bucks for some rent! they act like i don’t even count in their de—e—lusions. me. the disenchanted, deprived client. me. the unemployed, underemployed target area. me. the beauty and the beast. me. don’t nobody dress up like me on purpose! but i be here everyday. checking out the events and the processes. like how we act when check day comes on a full moon. did you ever check that out? like how we the best kept slaves in the world. like how we be celebrating Independence Day at the fireworks ceremonies and rituals. we must be some kinda crazy man watching himself be consumed by fire and tortured in flames.

i be here everyday. i see for the blind. i be here everyday. i hear for the deef. i be here everyday. i dreams for the dreamless. but we never see your face in the place, i guess you be thinking up something slick to write down. you should put your ownself on paper, how you gon be a poet? i knew Charlie Yardbird Parker when the air was half—ass clean full of beebop doowop alto saxaphone sounds bout to make that boy’s horn explode. when Marcus Garvey turned a bent over knee hurting breed a peoples into a red black and green rainbow. when Lady Day sang so hard it made ol’ Cripple Crutch Charlie walk, made ol’ Deef ‘n Dumb Daniel talk! how you gon be a poet, mister talkin bout verses ‘n rhyme streets ‘n peoples ‘n things.

© 1977 Sekou Sundiata, Chapbook FREE! (Shamal Books)

how you gon be a poet, mister talkin bout verses ‘n rhyme streets ‘n peoples ‘n things? how you gon be a poet. i be here everyday checking out the events and processes being the eyes and ears of dark strangers who be kissing and hugging sleeping and fighting with each other. you got a military coat on your back but no politics in your head and the enemy done ate your smile so how you gon be a poet?

african Voices

45

T H E G A L L E R Y

Otto Neals African Voices is honored to feature the great Otto Neals as our cover artist for this issue. A painter, sculptor and printmaker, Neals was born to Gus and Della Neals in Lake City, South Carolina. At age four, his family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he has lived ever since. Neals is basically a self-taught artist except for a brief course in oil painting at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and a course at the Bob Blackburn Printmaking Workshop studying with Roberto DeLomanica and Krishna Reddy. In addition to painting and printmaking, he is proficient in stone and woodcarving. The late painter and sculptor, Vivian Schuyler Key was largely responsible for his introduction to stone carving when she presented him with his first set of stone carving tools.

In 1951, Neals entered the U.S. Postal Service, where he spent many years creating signs, posters and illustrations. One of his creations, a 4ft.x 8ft. oak-relief sculpture entitled, “Spirit of `76,” is permanently displayed at the Brooklyn Post Office on Cadman Plaza in the Borough Hall section. Neals and four other artists founded the influential Weusi Nyumba Ya Sanaa Gallery in 1967 in the heart of Harlem, where it grew to be a global attraction before its closing. He was also involved in the Fulton Art Fair, which was founded by Ernie Crichlow, Jacob Lawrence and others in 1958.

His works are in public and private collections, including the Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina, National Museum of Ghana, The Library of Congress and The Smithsonian Institute, among many others.

Private collectors of Neals’ work include Randy Weston, Harry Belafonte, Oprah Winfrey and Mayor David Dinkins. He was commissioned in 1997 by the Ezra Jack Above: Tomorrow’s Choice

Keats Foundation and the Prospect Park Alliance to create a work of art in bronze for

Below: Young General Moses

the “Imagination Playground” in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. The large bronze sculpture entitled: Peter and Willie was inspired by a boy and his dog featured in a series of children’s books by African American author Keats.

Other commissions include ten bronze plaques for the “Harlem Walk of Fame” and a bronze work, entitled, “Discovery” for the Brooklyn Children’s Center. Neals has been included in American Visions, Ebony, Everybody’s, Sculpture and International Review of African American Art Magazines. He is also featured in Elton Fax’s “Black Artists of the New Generation” and has illustrated “African Heritage Cookbook” by Helen Mendes, “We Are the Children of the Great Ancient Africans” by Dr. Barbara Jackson and “The Adventures of Tony Mark and David” by Lenchen C. DeVane.

46

african Voices

ARTIST’S STATEMENT Mr. Neals states, “My talent as an artist, I believe, comes directly from my ancestors.

I am merely a receiver, an instrument for receiving some of those energies that permeate our entire universe, and I give thanks for having been chosen to absorb those artistic forces. I try to paint and sculpt African people, working always to portray those characteristics that are true of their beauty, their power, and their love. We are but shadows of those who have gone before us and before I enter the world of the spirits, I hope by example, to touch a positive nerve in our youth.”

Left: Closeness Right: Grandunion

Left: Wonderlocks

Right: The Seeress

african Voices

47

D R U M B E A T

ART Eternal Ancestors: The Art of the Central African Reliquary October 2, 2007-March 2, 2008 Metropolitan Museum of Art, Special Exhibition Galleries, 1st floor, 1000 5th Ave. at 82nd Street

L I S T I N G S

“Eternal Ancestors” presents some of the most celebrated creations of African masters in a new light. Many of these works were muses to members of the Western avant-garde, who collected and studied them for their inventive aesthetic qualities in their studios during the early 20th century. Drawn from the most important collections of African art in Europe and the United States, the more than 150 works featured are from 14 distinct cultural traditions in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These sculptural masterpieces were created to portray ancestors as vital intermediaries. For information call 212 570-3828 or 212 650-2551.

T H E ATER CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF - The all AfricanAmerican production of Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize winning play CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, directed

by Debbie Allen, will begin its limited run on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 to Thursday, March 6, 2008 at Broadway’s Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th Street. CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF is being presented by Tin Cat Productions and produced by Stephen Byrd. Hypocrisy, greed and secret passions threaten to tear apart a wealthy but dysfunctional Mississippi family in Tennessee Williams’ stunning American masterpiece. CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF searingly portrays the larger-than-life characters of Maggie “the Cat,” her alcoholic husband, Brick, and the dominating family patriarch, Big Daddy. CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF has been revived on Broadway several times before, but this production marks the first African-American production approved by William’s

48

african Voices

estate for the Broadway stage. For ticket information visit www.Cat2008onBroadway.com or call 212 239-6200.

LITERARY the 51st (dream) state - Bucknell University proudly presents the re-staging of the 51st (dream) state February 29, 2008, an innovative music-theater work written by poet/playwright Sekou Sundiata and directed

by Christopher McElroen. Sundiata passed away in July 2007 before completing the tour of this acclaimed production, which he considered his personal and poetic “State of the American Soul Address”—a loving and demanding look at some cherished mythologies and difficult truths about citizenship in the U.S.A. The cast, director and producers of this historic work are carrying on Sundiata’s voice and vision as longtime performer and collaborator LaTanya Hall steps into Sundiata’s role as narrator backed by an all-star ensemble of singers and musicians. The performance will be held at The Sigmund and Claire Weis Center for the Performing Arts, Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA 17837. For information call 570-577-1000 or visit www.bucknell.edu/boxoffice/.

A FRI CA N VOI CES EVEN T S CA LEN DA R 2 008 Ellie Charles Artists Award 2008

On Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 5:30 pm, African Voices, the premier Black literary arts magazine, will present a musical and poetic tribute to legendary jazz song stylist Nancy Wilson. Ms. Wilson, a Grammy awardwinning vocalist, will receive the Ellie Charles Artists Award for her many contributions to the arts. The Ellie Awards is an annual fundraising benefit for African Voices.

The celebration will be held at the Kumble Theater for Performing Arts, Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus (DeKalb and Flatbush Avenues). For tickets call (212) 865-2982 or visit www.africanvoices.com.

The Big Read: African Voices Celebrates Zora Neale

Hurston from Brooklyn to Harlem: All events are free and open to the public.

From February to June 2008 (see below), African Voices will co-host several programs with the Brooklyn Public Library, the Schomburg Center and other community partners to celebrate Zora Neale Hurston’s classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God as a participant in the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Big Read program. The Big Read is a nationwide program created by the NEA to revitalize the role of literary reading in American culture. The Big Read invites communities across the nation to read and discuss a single American novel. The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest. African Voices will also collaborate with the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center, CommunityWorks, MoCada, the Harlem Book Fair, the Brooklyn Borough Present’s Office, and the National Black Writers Conference at Medgar Evers College, among other cultural institutions in New York City. For information call 212 865-2982. An updated schedule will be available at www.africanvoices.com.

February 16, 2008, 3pm-6pm Schomburg Center (135th St. & Lenox Ave.) #2, 3 Trains to 135th St. Families are invited to join Lucy Anne Hurston, author of Speak, So You Can Speak Again and Zora’s niece, for an afternoon of storytelling and dramatic performances at the historic Schomburg Center.

February 20, 2008, 6pm, Film Screening: “Zora Is My Name” Brooklyn Public Library, Grand Army Plaza, Dweck Center/718 230-2100 African Voices and the Brooklyn Public Library will host a special screening of “Zora Is My Name,” an intimate and entertaining portrait of Zora Neale Hurston’s life directed by Neema Barnette. The film, which stars actress Ruby Dee, celebrates the stories, songs and folklore that were Zora’s heritage and inspiration. Light refreshments will be served.

February 23, 2008, 3pm - Storytelling Festival Brooklyn Public Library, Grand Army Plaza 718 230-2100 Teens and adults can join in on a fun afternoon of storytelling and discussion on Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. Explore the author’s love of language and culture. Guest author Lucy Anne Hurston, the author of Speak, So You Can Speak Again, will share intimate details about her aunt’s life and legacy. Renowned Brooklyn storyteller and folklorist Tammy Hall will serve as host for the youth program, which will include a crafts workshop using Zora’s stories as an inspiration.

February 27, 2008, 6pm-8pm Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon St./#2, 3, 4, 5

Trains to Borough Hall Join Lucy Anne Hurston, author of Speak, So You Can Speak Again and Zora’s niece, for an evening of storytelling and dramatic performances.

March 8, 2008, Hue-Man Bookstore & Cafe, 4 pm-5:30 pm, 2319 Frederick Douglass Blvd. (bet. 124th & 125th Sts.)/212 665-7400 African Voices and Hue-Man Bookstore & Cafe will present “Eatonville to Harlem: Exploring Zora Neale Hurston’s Vision of Property & Self-Ownership.”

Ms. Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God chronicles the story of one of America’s first AfricanAmerican townships and the election of a Black mayor, which is loosely based on her family’s history in Eatonville, Florida. Janie Crawford, the novel’s heroine, becomes a self-possessed woman as she journeys through three marriages in search of true love.

Their Eyes prominently deals with the issues of race, class and property in the post-Reconstruction-era South as the characters re-define their role in a free society.

The dialogue will explore the themes in Ms. Hurston’s classic novel and relate them to Harlem residents’ battle to preserve its cultural identity and property in the face of gentrification.

March 28, 2008, 12 noon-3pm National Black Writers Conference Founder’s Auditorium, Medgar Evers College, 1650 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY Phone: 718 270-4811 African Voices and the National Black Writers Conference will host “An Intergenerational Dialogue on Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God” led by high school students involved with the college’s Center for Black Literature. The dialogue will explore Ms. Hurston’s impact as an artist whose influence has paved the way for today’s generation of Black women writers.

Rhymes Rhyme & Rituals Celebrates Zora Neale Hurston - June 28, 2008 Marcus Garvey Park, Harlem (120th St. & 5 Ave.)/2, 3, 4, 5 trains to 125th St. On Saturday, June 28, from 3:30 pm-6:30 pm, African Voices magazine will present “Rhymes, Rhythms & Rituals 2008,” a poetry and music concert, at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem. This year’s Rhymes will honor Zora Neale Hurston’s legacy as a Harlem Renaissance writer with musical and storytelling performances dedicated to her work. The event will serve as a closing ceremony for African Voices Big Read programs. Founded in 1997 by African Voices magazine, “Rhymes, Rhythms & Rituals” is a showcase for New York’s hottest poets and bands in parks throughout the five boroughs. Call to confirm date.

african Voices

49

Contributors Amiri Baraka, born in 1934, in Newark, New Jersey, USA, is the author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism. A poet icon and revolutionary political activist, he has recited poetry and lectured on cultural and political issues extensively in the USA, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. He is the author of such revolutionary writings as the signature study on African-American music, Blues People (1963) and the play Dutchman (1963). His awards and honors include an Obie, the American Academy of Arts & Letters award, the James Weldon Johnson Medal for contributions to the arts, Rockefeller Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts grants, Professor Emeritus at the State university of New York at Stony Brook, and the Poet Laureate of New Jersey. Baraka lives in Newark with his wife and author Amina Baraka; they have five children and head up the word-music ensemble, Blue Ark: The Word Ship and co-direct Kimako’s Blues People, the “artspace” housed in their theater basement for some fifteen years.

Wayne Dawkins was a reporter/researcher with Trans Urban News Service from 1977-79. The author of several books on the National Association of Black Journalists is an assistant professor at the Hampton University Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications. He co-produced the New Media project “Voting Rights, Northern Style,” www.nbpc.tv/hbcu.

reg e gaines is a poet, musician, director and playwright. He is currently in production on his Hip-Hop musical, “Free.”

Pittershawn Palmer is a published freelance writer, journalist, speechwriter, copywriter and copyeditor. She earned her B.A. in English from Iona College where she graduated with honors, and was inducted into Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society.

She is currently completing her Masters in Journalism and will soon begin studies towards an M.F.A. in Writing. Pittershawn enjoys reading, playing piano, traveling, singing, graphic arts designing, and skating. She has published a book of poetry, Words…Loving Emotions, and is working on her first novel. She can be reached at pittershawn@pittershawn.com.

Louis Reyes Rivera, aka the Janitor of History, is a highly respected underground poet who has assisted in the publication of over 200 books, including John Oliver Killens’ Great Black Russian, and Bum Rush The Page: A Def Poetry Jam. He has taught courses on Pan-African, Caribbean and Puerto Rican literature and history. Among his own works is the award-winning Scattered Scripture, a translation of history into poetry. He can be heard Thursdays, at 2pm, on WBAI, 99.5FM (streamed at www.wbai.org) hosting Perspective, and may be reached at Louisreyesrivera@aol.com.

Iyanla Vanzant is a bestselling author whose books include Tapping the Power Within, Acts of Faith, The Value in the Valley, Faith in the Valley, and two new guides to self-awareness and spiritual fulfillment: In the Meantime: Finding Yourself and the Love You Want and One Day My Soul Just Opened Up: 40 Days and 40 Nights Toward Spiritual Strength.

Ibi Aanu Zoboi is an award-winning writer and storyteller. Born in Haiti, she draws from its rich African culture and cosmology to create inspirational tales of resurrection and redemption. Her short story, “Old Flesh Song” is published in Dark Matter: Reading the Bones. She is completing a children’s urban fantasy trilogy and lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and visual artist Joseph Zoboi and three children.

50

african Voices

Read Great American Writer Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God THE BIG READ The Big Read is a nationwide program created by the National Endowment for the Arts to revitalize the role of literary reading in American culture. The Big Read invites communities across the nation to read and discuss a single classic American novel. African Voices and its community partners invite you to read Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and attend the book discussions and storytelling events in your neighborhood. The NEA supplies educational and promotional materials such as Reader’s Guides, Teacher’s Guides, Audio Guides, bookmarks, posters and banners to encourage citizens to participate.

For more information about the Big Read visit www.neaBigRead.org.

Get Your Read On! (GYRO!) with African Voices for 2008 BIG READ KICK-OFF CELEBRATIONS Families are invited to join Lucy Anne Hurston, author of Speak, So You Can Speak Again and Zora’s niece, for two exciting Big Read kick-off celebrations of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Ms. Hurston will be joined by surprise guests at both events. Free books and give-aways.

HARLEM:

Sat., February 16, 2008, 3pm-6pm Schomburg Center (135th St. & Lenox Ave.)/#2,3 Trains to 135th St.

BROOKLYN:

Wed., February 27, 2008, 6pm-8pm Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street/#2, 3, 4, 5 Trains to Borough Hall Please visit our website for a full calendar and listing of participating community partners: www.africanvoices.com.

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest.

Sekou Sundiata (August 22, 1948 -- July 18, 2007)