In 2021 “Wombfulness Gatherings” was born. We discussed the power of the Black womb: her resistance and resilience, sanctity and sacredness, her stories, her recovery: womb as safety. Sojourner Truth’s story resonated with me. She took her freedom. Walked away from the plantation. She is a mother who left. Black women often stay when it’s time to leave. Truth packed her bag and walked away. Heart breaking, she walked away from bondage carrying one child, leaving the rest.
Souljourning for Truth Project 2022 honors Black wom(b)an agency. I too, choose to walk. Take time for me to reflect on another path, another way– freedom over bondage. With courage, she (eye) walk good, she (eye) heal grief, she (eye) claim economic justice. She died poor, yet she worked for her people. Her daughters died poor too. We need to change this.
I am traveling from Alameda County, California, to Ulster County, New York. Truth wanted freed Africans given land in California, the West, but those who could have facilitated reparations did not. “Give them land in the west.” She said.
This trek from Calif. to N.Y. to Mass. to Mich. is for her and me. 2,928 miles to N.Y. where she was born and enslaved is 7 days by car. I will be on the road for almost two months being wombful.
We honor her on June 1, 2022, her chosen birthday. Libations, prayers and celebration Iya Truth! All praises due Saint Sojourner Truth! You are an excellent example of wombful integrity, faith, intelligence, wit and humor, forgiveness, and patience. I want to feel your energy. Touch the ground where you walked. Watch your sunrise and moonset and count your siblings in God’s sky at night like you and Mau-mau Bett did.
Sometimes, we need to touch somebody. I need to touch Truth. She is an ancestor, so I can touch people from the dirt that grew her work, witness the monuments that celebrate her life, and find comfort and strength in such places we intersect and overlap.“Split, we do not think broken—we do not think. We holy. Forced isolation. With separation comes clarity. She world within world.” – from “She Is,” by Wanda Sabir
There will be a short film documenting the journey. All donors will be acknowledged and invited to the virtual screening.
Visit Wombfulness Gatherings blog for more information.
FB.com/wombfulnest
Instagram.com/wandaspicks
Contact: souljourning4truth@gmail.com
Wanda’s Picks April 2022
Ramadan Mubarak! Blessed Month of Ramadan! Happy International Jazz Heritage Month. Happy International Poetry Month.
African American Museum and Library@ Oakland, Program
Return of the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, Friday, April 22, 2022,4:00 PM – 5:00 PM. Free online event
Description
Chief Priest Osemwegie Ebohon—historian, journalist, poet, and playwright—is a chief priest in the spiritual traditions of the Edo people in Benin, Nigeria, West Africa. Since the 1970s, the priest—a founder of the Ebohon Cultural Center in Benin—has worked tirelessly for the return of the world famous Benin bronzes and carved ivory works of art plundered during the late nineteenth century punitive invasion by British armed forces.
Chief Priest Ebohon will discuss the punitive invasion and theft of the art, disclose where the Benin bronzes settled in European and American museums, and detail the diplomatic efforts underway to affect their repatriation to Nigeria.
Mental Health Support for Black Families
A Conversation with Quincy Troupe on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show
An Interview with Mr. Quincy Troupe
By Wanda Sabir
I had an opportunity to speak with Mr. Quincy Troupe at the end of March. I wondered as I always do, what could we talk about. The man is both a scholar and a performance artist who has probably heard anything I could possibly suggest we discuss. Nonetheless, I took a breath—did my due diligence regarding his new work, “Duende: Poems, 1966-Now” (2022). I read much of the work and made sure I touched all of the pages with my eyes. And the conversation was wonderful. I kept hearing surprise and delight in Mr. Troupe’s voice. I even asked him a question or made a comment on a motif he has—using “eye” for “I”, he’d never heard addressed before.
This was, by far, a highlight of my humble year so far and I hope when you listen to the conversation and later, when you watch it, the magic comes through. Visit Wanda’s Picks Radio, April 13, 2022 (http://tobtr.com/12085435). Follow me and this site, so you never miss an episode.
“Duende: Poems, 1966-Now” (2022) by Quincy Troupe is amazing! His work stylistically is so varied. I found it had to read without savory breaks to sit in the work, splashing the images and sounds, tasting the specificity of spoken language—the work anchored in Black space, memories – crabs walking sideways, haints or spirits living on ocean floors where dry bones.
“In Duende: Poems, 1966-Now” just out on Seven Stories Press this year, Quincy Troupe fuses Black liberation love songs into a civil critique that forgets nothing as it queries everything. Using language like graphite on canvas, Troupe crafts work that recasts what seamed holy. Stitches unraveled, candles relit, lightbulbs left unscrewed—this survey of old and new work reminds his audience of what we—Black people left behind, how much of what we are is creative invention and grace.
Duende documents this amazing journey, Troupe both example and guide. His life is our life too. We all come from the same waters–
Excerpted here are: Embryo (1972), Snake-Back Solos: Selected Poems, 1969-1977, Skulls along the River (1984), Weather Reports: New Poems, 1984-1990; Choruses (1999); Transcircularities: New and Selected Poems (2002); The Architecture of Language (2006); Erranꞔities (2012); Ghost Voices: A Poem in Prayer (2019); Seduction: New Poems (2013-2018); New Poems 2019-2020.
Don’t be intimidated by the 656 pages. Just take it one poem at a time. There are praise songs for ancestors Kobe Bryant, Aretha Franklin, Derek Walcott, Toni Morrison . . . Sekou Sundiata, Michael Jackson; tributes to John Coltrane, Lady Day and Dinah Washington, A Dirge for Mike Brown, Tamir Rice & Trayvon Martin (527). He also writes about family, loved ones, friends. The collection opens with “Embryo” for his mother Dorothy Smith Troupe Marshall (22).
Themes traverse the work—alienation and reunion, memory and recreation— ancestors, politics—spirit a connecting tissue that keeps the wayward bound, safe. There is a poem about President Biden, Senator Nancy Pelosi, and many that mention President Obama. The locations for the stories or poems move and shift between California and New York, Ghana and Guadeloupe.
We ride the subways. . . sit on beaches, walk through busy city streets, listen to music travel into the interior spaces in matters of the heart. Several poems are to his wife Margaret. How many collections do you own where a Black man honors his wife?
Musicality is present in all the work—sung easily in the longer pieces which fly on wings of black birds without punctuation. Eyes travel slowly so we don’t get kicked off the boat or out of the crowded van. We make notes to return later, these notes in the margins on pages where we read a word we don’t know or can’t pronounce. Is this a Troupe creation, we wonder as we continue to the next word, give up and take a Google break.
Troupe is erudite. Brilliant. One wonders how he writes so well and so prolifically?
My favorite sections so far are those with haunting imagery—the sections that have a soundtrack, the poems I hear waves crashing and birds calling, circling diving. I appreciate the longer work that acknowledges the wounding and the scars Black people carry. Love is what has saved us and it is visible in the art the words illustrate, along with actual illustrations. “Duende” is a magical Black love story. The ending is happy, despite the tragedy, despite the horror.
Troupe walks sings dances us through the history that is our story in this experiment called America. He doesn’t tell us to watch out; he tells us to listen and follow the rhythms into those spaces we know only when we arrive.
It is a beautiful work, the man is a genius, a brilliant conjurer who has honed his craft well— “Duende” a sample that with each moment past becomes out of date. Yet, truth is never dated so neither is this master conjurer who calls on the spirit world to ride with him into these spaces we visit too seldom. Here the memories are freshest, medicine assured to cure. Troupe’s libation freshens the road. It is a Black magic star home.
A Southerner, born July 22, 1939, in St. Louis, Missouri, Troupe’s muse plays bass, sings tenor and wears blues. . . . The recipient of numerous awards, the scholar, poet, teacher – retired after 35 years at University of San Diego, La Jolla, now lives in Harlem with his wife Margaret Porter Troupe. He has an event at the NY Library April 28, 2022, for National Poetry Month. It is in person and online. Register in advance.
There was a Black History Month 2022 program at African American Center at SF Main Library: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdS4V2g9TDY
Other QT programs April 2022:
Note: We spoke to Quincy Troupe, author, poet, about his latest work, “Duende.” It is a collection that spans 50 years of a creative life fully embodied. Taped in Zoom, this audio only approximates the honor it is to speak to such a magnificent human being 3 months before his 83rd revolution around so(u)l.
He has a few more appearances this month:
1. National Poetry Month: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NY Public Library, Iris Project, Thursday, April 14, 6:30-8:30 PM ET. Here is the recorded program:
2. With Mildred Howard and David Murray at the close of the “The House that Will Not Pass for Any Color than Its Own.” Saturday, April 16, from 4 to 6pm at Belvedere Plaza (just north of the North Cove Marina) to mark the end of the artwork’s stay in Manhattan’s Battery Park City.
3. Poet, Quincy Troupe | DUENDE: Poems 1966- Now | Reading & Book Signing at the Carrie Chen Gallery on Saturday, April 23 from 4-5pm, 16 Railroad Street, Great Barrington, MA 01230
4. NY Society Library, Apr. 28, 6 PM ET Livestream (free)
https://www.nysoclib.org/events/livestream-quincy-troupe-duende-poems-1966-now
Bay Area Women’s Theatre Mini-Festival through May 2022
Listen to an interview with Alejandra Maria Rivas and Tracy Baxter with Kathryn Seabron on Wanda’s Picks, April 8, 2022.
Face Coverings Now Voluntary for Riders on AC Transit
AC Transit will implement a voluntary face mask policy effective Wednesday, April 20, 2022. Riders will now have the option of wearing a face covering while onboard our buses.
We do still strongly encourage everyone to follow the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which recommends that transit riders wear face coverings.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) dispensers at the entrance of each bus will continue to have complimentary, disposable face masks and hand sanitizer available for the convenience of our riders.
Please visit our website, or contact us directly for more information, questions or comments:
- Connect on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
- Submit feedback using the AC Transit Official Mobile App
- Call our Customer Services Center at (510) 891-4777
Your health and safety are always our priority. Thank you for riding AC Transit.
Music
Tribute to Founding Member of the Watts Writers Workshop
In 1965, Los Angeles burned. Watts, located on the outskirts of the city simmered in unrest. From the ashes of this rebellion, a writing workshop formed, run by a screenwriter who wanted to make a difference, Budd Schulberg. Budd, a Hollywood big-shot, drove to Watts and taped a note on a door announcing a workshop had formed. At first, no one came. Then a straggler peeked inside. Within the Douglass House on Beach Street, a high school kid decided to give it a shot. Leumas Sirrah took the workshop and then told his friend, bringing with him Johnie Scott.
“The Watts Writers Workshop allowed us to voice what urban Black America was thinking, feeling and seeing. Before that, no one was listening,” Scott said.
The workshop became the spot, a literary broiler-plate for ideas and passion and part-time home for a few poets who had no place to go. In no time, the notoriety of these Watts writers soared. Strong, vibrant and prolific, unapologetically black, these poets went from unknown to international fame, summoning greats like Sidney Portier and Senator Robert Kennedy. Sammy Davis came through so did actor Marlon Brando, as well Richard Roundtree, Nina Simone and James Baldwin to list a few. The Workshop produced numerous novels, poems, essays and plays including their own publications, From the Ashes of Watts, and WATTS Poets & Writers edited by Quincy Troupe. It also had a national performance on television on NBC and received a National Endowment of the Art award.
“The NEA provided tremendous assistance, no question about it.” Schulberg said.
“Sammy Davis gave us money, we grew into our own entity,” Leamus Sirrah added. “I discovered I liked poetry. I wrote one or two poems a day.”
The workshop grew from two to fourteen members then more including; Harry Dolan, James Jackson, Sonora McKeller, Birdell Chew Moore, Guadelupe de Saavedra, Ryan Vallejo Kennedy, Ernest Mayhand, Jimmie Sherman, Jeanne Taylor, and My Daddy Was A Numbers Runner, Louise Meriwether and Blossom Powe and later, writer Wanda Coleman.
“Mother was prolific,” Mario Powe said of his mom, Blossom Powe. “It was a thrill seeing her read and perform on tv.”
As one of the last members, Kamau Daaood orchestrated the workshops continuum at The World Stage, a storefront in Leimert Park founded by the acclaimed Horace Tapscott. Kamau, who attended the Watts Writers Workshop at its satellite location on Slauson and West remembers it being run by Elvie Whitney Landauer.
“Whitney was a playwright, she was supposed to do a play at Dorothy Chandler, but at the very last minute they pulled it.”
The Watts Writers Workshop had its own plug pulled the night it was torched in a similar style as Judas and the Black Messiah. As some say, “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust.”
But the dust has not settled on these fiery wordsmiths. In a tribute to a former member, Ojenke remembers Eric Priestley well. “I was walking down the street and heard piano playing inside a building, a mix of Rachmaninoff with jazz motifs. That’s how I discovered the workshop. Eric’s piano playing pulled me in.” The two pianists learned they also shared birthdays with Beethoven and Bach.
Eric wrote Abracadabra and Raw Dog, screenplays, essays and poems and was a member of The Writers Guild. But his greatest talent was his ability to cheer other writers on. Not just his friends, and Eric had many but also novice writers in the countless writing gigs he lead throughout the city, including Antioch, Dominguez Hills and CSUN and a long stint overseas in China.
On Saturday, April 9th 2022 at 2pm via zoom there will be a tribute to Eric Priestley. Original workshop members will honor their friend in a reading. To sing Priestley home brings a historical convergence of talent. Five original Watts Writers Workshop members will share work and stories including Alvin “Ojenke” Saxon, whose poetry charmed Bob Marley; Anthony “Amde” Hamilton who formed the poetry trio, The Watts Prophets; Quincy Troupe, who penned, Miles & Me and the Watts to Harvard scholar, Johni Scott. The show will include a call-in from the first member Leumas Sirrah and the last member, Kamuu Daood.
Starting the show will be a drumming sequence by Louis Harris and Jai-Jai-Kabasa. Closing the show will be remarks from women writers who bid the bard Eric farewell; Los Angeles Times writer, Erin Aubrey, poets Wendy “Tchise” James and Houston Blue. The show is hosted by David Maruyama, professor at Compton College and poet/novelist Pam Ward.
Poetry for the People Tackle Environmental Justice
Black Literature vs. The Climate Emergency celebrates the power of Afro-Diasporic fiction, non-fiction and poetry at the forefront of addressing the climate emergency by featuring contemporary Black authors from the US, Africa and throughout the African Diaspora whose work directly addresses these issues. Streamed via YouTube on Tuesday, April 5th, from 12PM-6PM Pacific Time/3PM-9PM Eastern Time, the event invites an escalation of literary efforts to document and imagine a successful movement for climate justice, as well as encouraging the engagement of Black communities. TO WATCH
Honoring the Waters of the Planet
Listen to a Radio Show interview with Yeye Teish on Wanda’s Picks.
Olokun Rising Full Ritual Schedule
From Yeye Teish:
Alafia good people:
This document is provided to suggest the many ways that you and your community can participate in the Olokun Rising: Praise-singing for the Waters of the World. Please alter these recommendations to suit your needs, resources, time zones etc.
Important: There is NO FEE for participating in this ritual. Your only costs are altar offerings for the ancestors/Orishas/Deities, meals, transportation, shopping, or entertainment during “open times.”
It can be done in a group or all alone. It is open to all people of all traditions, everywhere.
Please go to the water source nearest you or as directed by your ancestors and intuition.
Please observe the protocols regarding COVID, mobility issues, safety, and other factors impacting your life. The Harbor Masters have the responsibility and authority to guide and direct community activities.
Friends and members of Ile Orunmila Oshun can/will gather in Oakland, Ca. but traveling to Oakland is not necessary. Living accommodations will be provided for those who come. If you are coming to Oakland and need a place to stay please let me know ASAP.
The following ZOOM link is available from April 8, 9:00 am Pacific Time until 8:00 pm Pacific Time on April 12th. Please put this information in your calendar now so you can “tune in” as you need to.
Here is the link with the meeting ID, the passcode, and phone numbers.
Luisah Teish is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87681984932?pwd=N1ZLMFJNRElMalpmVEJtTjU2TGNLZz09
Meeting ID: 876 8198 4932
Passcode: 798242
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kIwzCrhQD
Those who are coming from out of town and/or scheduled to receive divinations/elevations should come into Oakland early on the 8th. We will make transportation arrangements to our meeting place. The location will be revealed to those who are coming. Please come prepared for the baths, divinations, and elevations you are to receive. Instructions will be sent as needed.
Spiritual Elevations: 12:00-5:00
Divinations
Elekes
Addimu Orishas
Dinner 6:00-7:30: We may cook at the facility or eat at a local restaurant.
Sacred Space/Meditation 8:00-10:00 pm
Ceremonial White Clothes are Required for this ritual.
Overview of the weekend-Yeye & Kelly
The Elevation of the Ancestors will take place at Oyanike botanica 2988 Adeline St. @ Ashby, Berkeley 94703
Set altar for the Water Spirits.- Please build an altar with photos/objects for the water deities/creatures/land masses. Make it powerful, beautiful, and safe
Ancestors beneath the water. A list of the ancestors who have died by water (Ex. The middle passage. Pirate ships, migrants, flood/tsunami etc.)
Crystal bowl, bells, and candle meditation. Place water and candles on the altar, ring bells, hum, cry, moan, as your spirit guides. Relax, release, go inward. Includes a head cleansing. Candles may be purchased at the botanica.
Recording of Mojuba Fe Fe Iku by Elaina.
Dream totem assignment- Understanding the planet Neptune-Kelly Beard, Resident Astrologer.
To bed: At your residence
Morning Meditation-Exercise 6:00-8:00 (optional)
Time to wake-up, exercise, meditate, or walk in the garden. Whatever it takes to energize yourself for the day. Time to cook and eat breakfast.
Shrine visit -9:00-10:00
Salutations to the shrines/altars of the Harbor Masters. We will present offerings to the Olokun Shrine of Iya Nedra in Oakland.
Ceremonial White Clothes are Required for this ritual.
The Day the Sea stood still 10:00 am-12 noon
An educational presentation on the conditions of the waters of the world. YouTube videos. Review in advance. Please tailor these recommendations to address your concerns. Oakland location to be determined.
(See Appendice A):
Lunch 12:00-1:00 As you please.
Journey to a local water source 1:00 am-4:00 pm
Please carpool to the river, ocean, lake. Or go to easy locations including park fountains, swimming pools and your kitchen sink.
Apology to the Water Spirits:
Teish will write this with input from other priestesses. (See Appendice B)
A plea for salvation.-individual and collective prayer/song (See Appendice C)
A litany for each person, community, and for the planet.
Performed at various locations.
People are participating all over the world.
Dinner 5:00-7:00 pm. As you please. Free time.
Words Across the Water 7:00-9:00 pm
Colorful clothing welcomed.Please avoid wearing black.
Oyanike’s botanica. 2988 Adeline St. @ Ashby Berkeley 94703
Praise-singing the Water
Drumming and Dance before the altar- Bring your instruments
Hope and Makeshift Orchestra
Storytelling, dramatic readings.
Recorded Chant for Oshun by Brazilian musician.
Multi-traditional presentations. The Many Mermaids of the World-group sharing.
Olokun-Iya Ohen- Nedra Williams
Yemaya- Iya Cathy royal
Mami-Wata- TBA
Hawaiian perspective-Leilani
-Kemetic
Native American perspective
Mayan Water worker
Wicca-Celtic
Hindu
** We need people who are willing/able to praise-sing more of the water spirits.
10:00 PM Rest, relaxation-sleep.
Sunday 10th:Brunch 11:00-1:00 pm. Oakland location to be determined
Commitment to Sacred Waters-. Each person is asked the think about what they can do to protect and celebrate water. We will take oaths (See Appendice D)
Future plans for sustainable actions-Yeye & Kelly
Ritual Recommendations for April 12th (Neptune-Jupiter)
Altar deconstruction. 1:00-5:00
Closing song
Shopping
Sight-seeing
Departures
If needed, we can continue to perform divinations and elevations.
Receive elekes, addimu Orishas, divinations.
Location to be determined.
Tuesday, 12th
Embodying the Jupiter-Neptune energy.
This ritual will be performed at your own altar as per Kelly’s recommendations.
Saturday 16th: Full Moon in Libra
Ritual as recommended by Yeye and Kelly or other priest/astrologer.
Appendice A: Educational materials. YouTube videos. Recommended readings.
Climate Change Overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAa58N4Jlos&ab_channel=DJICaptures
A world without Ice:
Climate change and floods:
Hurricanes:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aeog_6CLAUE?&ab_channel=JoyChannel
Tsunami:
California Tsunami:
Pollution:
Polluted Ocean:
Human Harms
**Human harms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_s6eOPqg-c&ab_channel=EcoBravo
Pollution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX2vHu_IqZ8&ab_channel=List25
Drought: Hunger
California droughts:
Water usage:
Fracking:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1zagvo75RJo?&ab_channel=SenatorBernieSanders
Contamination:
Activism:
Water distribution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcteL7-0-74&ab_channel=MooMooMathandScience
Flint Michigan:
Water Protectors:
Sacred Waters:
Water Walking:
Sacred Water rituals:
Water Deities:
Africa:
Ghana:
Black women Deep Sea Divers:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/Konda+Mason/FMfcgzGmvTstNHbgjddRmWDfPrSSgtss?projector=1
The Water Tree:
World Water Council: https://www.worldwatercouncil.org/en
World Water Day: https://www.un.org/en/observances/water-day
Water Poems: https://interestingliterature.com/2018/03/10-of-the-best-poems-about-water/
Our Blue Planet-David: https://interestingliterature.com/2018/03/10-of-the-best-poems-about-water/
More recommendations.
Jeju Korea: Water women.
Jeju:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPCsdGHwe7w&ab_channel=Dr.NancyMcClure-Galli
Appendice B: Apology to the Waters:
Stand before the water source. Feel the energy of the earth rising up into your feet and that of the sky raining down upon you. Let those energies meet in your heart and flow across your chest into your hands. Remember your life -long relationship to water.
Sample:
I _______________________come before this water today to ask forgiveness on behalf of myself, my family, my community, and the people of the world.
Please forgive me for _____________________________________________name it. For this I ask forgiveness.
Please forgive my family for _______________________________________name it. For this we ask forgiveness.
Please forgive my community for __________________________________name it. I ask on their behalf please forgive us.
Please forgive the people of this earth who have injured you in these ways_______________
__________________________________________________________Name the ways. On behalf of all of us I beg forgiveness.
Note: Allow yourself to truly feel this release and think now about your commitment to future action.
Appendice C: Plea to the Waters:
Present your offerings of fruit, flowers, grain, coins, shells etc to the water source.
You may stand with head bowed or sit on the shore. You may want to take some water in hand, wash your head, face, feet etc. Speak from your heart. Example:
“Oh most sacred element WATER. You whom we cannot live without. I/we come to you humbly and with great gratitude for all that you have provided for us, forever. We beg you please continue to ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Name the blessing your receive from water. Let the feeling of gratitude flow. Laugh, sing, whatever.
Appendice D. Oath to the Waters
Take time to consider this oath. Commit to performing a simple act to praise and protect the waters of the world. Sign the oath. Example:
I, _______________________________________child of ____________________________. I vow to do no harm and yet even to make each place whereon I walk better for my having been there.
I do hereby commit myself to praise and protect the flowing waters of the earth by performing the following acts:
Name your personal act.________________________________________________________
Name your family act.___________________________________________________________
Name your act on behalf of community____________________________________________
Name your act on behalf of the world.____________________________________________
I ask the elders, the ancestors, and the Water Spirits to guide me in Right Conduct as I fulfill my commitment and devotion to Mother Earth and all Her Children.
I sign this oath with full awareness of its importance and its power.
Name:____________________________Birthdate_______________________Seal________
(Seal: Press the tallest finger on your left hand into some oil and press it next to your signature) Place this oath on your altar.
Wanda’s Picks March 2022
Congratulations to Dr. Vickie Alexander, founder of Healthy Black Families, on her 80th Birthday, Feb. 26 and continued thanks for the institution you founded 10 years ago, https://healthyblackfam.org/
Asé for Dr. Paul Farmer, founder, Partners for Health, for his work in bringing medical help to our people throughout the Diaspora, especially Haiti. Visit. Donate. Support: https://www.pih.org/
Happy International Women’s History Month 2022, especially those pioneering risk-taking sistahs who stepped forward when no one else would.
ImagineJudge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. Hold that thought as the white power structure cracks and crumbles along a fissure Biden pried openwhen he stepped into office. Photo credit: “Wall Street Journal.”
Christine Saed, Presente!
January 22, 2022, Christine Saed made her transition. She was the librarian at the West Oakland library that had the longest tenure with the African American Celebration through Poetry (1991-2022). We honored her along with Al Young and bell hooks, Feb. 19, which would have been Christine’s 74th birthday. If you missed the event, which was lovely, here is a link to Facebook.com/wandaspicks
March 6, at the Oakland Museum of CA there will be a drop-in memorial in the Garden 2-5 p.m. PT
THE DROP IN MEMORIAL RECEPTION FOR CHRISTINE SAED WILL BE IN THE MUSEUM GARDENS OUTSIDE THE TOWN FARE CAFE on the first level. Join us at the outside table with the POST IT BOARD FOR OUR EXPERIENCE(S) WITH CHRISTINE ( TINA). All are invited to post individual and group memories so we may have a collective narrative to comfort each other while grieving about Christine on Sunday, March 6th from 2-5 pm PDT. The results will be gathered and shared later by email. There will be a sign-in book as well for follow up.
However, all must check in at the admission kiosk on the first level at the entrance to both the museum and the cafe. If you say you are going to the cafe and gardens, admission is free and you will need the special sticker.
Here are the details for the no-host refreshments at the Town Fare Cafe in the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA). The ADMISSION TO THE TOWN FARE CAFE AND GARDENS OF THE OAKLAND MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA ( OMCA) IS FREE with COVID PPE and proof of vaccinations.
Edmonia Lewis, Black Heritage 2022
This year’s Black History Stamp honors the sculptor, Mary Edmonia Lewis, “Wildfire,” (July 4, 1804-Sept. 17, 1907) who sculpted The Death of Cleopatra in marble for the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876 and in Chicago two years later. The two-ton sculpture never returned to Italy with its creator because Lewis couldn’t afford the shipping costs. It disappeared for 100 years. Located in the back room of a saloon, it now resides at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art (third floor in the Luce Foundation Center) along with many of her other notable busts.
Claudia Li writes in “Sartle”: “The post-Exhibition life of Cleopatra gets a little rocky, though.
[Too expensive to carry a two-ton marble [work, though well-received] back to Rome, Lewis placed it in a storage facility in Chicago. Somehow, it made its way to a saloon in 1892 and then into the hands of a notorious gambler and racehorse tycoon named “Blind John” Condon, who used it as the gravestone for his favorite horse, Cleopatra. (Image from https://digitalscholarship.cca.edu/cleopatra.html).
“Evidently, Condon found a lot in common between the real Cleopatra and the hooved one. With “Blind” as a nickname, though, you may find that practically everything has something in common.
“When the racetrack turned into a USPS service facility in the 1970s, Cleopatra traveled to a storage yard, where a fire inspector and his son’s Boy Scout troop rescued it and cleaned it. They also painted it white because at that time, white-washing was ok. “A biographer working on Edmonia Lewis’s life story sent out a query for Lewis’s last known sculpture and, after visiting Cleopatra in a local shopping mall, knew she’d found it. . . .”
She was the first Black woman to make her livelihood from plastic arts. Born free in Upstate New York, she grew up in New Jersey with her mother’s people and lived most of her life in Rome, Italy. In her work “’Forever Free’ [which] is a celebration of black liberation, salvation, and redemption, and represents the emancipation of African-American slaves. Lewis attempted to break stereotypes of African-American women with this sculpture’” (Wikipedia). In Dakar for the Festival of African and African Diaspora Culture (FESMAN) 2010, “The African Renaissance Monument,” was unveiled that resembles Lewis’s celebration of Black liberation.
I listened to a really delightful “Finding Cleopatra” podcast on Sidedoor (12/19/2019) which retells the story like a whodunit. A young Ms. Lewis suffered racial and sexual assault at Oberlin College, one of the only institutions that allowed women and people of African descent to attend with the dominant male student body. She did not let this deter her, especially when she was assaulted by dominant culture Oberlin students and falsely accused by others of attempted murder (which she was acquitted).
Print out this comic for a young person to read about this remarkable woman of paternal Haitian and maternal Mississauga Ojibwe heritage.
Wombfulness Gathering Reflection on the First Anniversary – Still Distancing and Sheltering in Place
As the borders between us open wide, I stay within, closed to too much exposure. Carefully I peek into rooms crowded with humanity and retreat. It is the gift of literature; art I enjoy in solitude that feeds a hunger that comes with famine. I may never be able to touch strangers, fly to distant countries, sit in live theatre productions, attend a dance class or walk through an art show.
I remember my last such events as doors shut tightly behind me as I squeezed though. I am so happy I have books to read. Ancestors walk with me—Sojourner Truth, Mrs. Jarena Lee, Harriet Wilson, Frances Harper, Anna Julia Cooper, Ph.D., Della Reese. . . Cicely Tyson. These women share their stories in “Spiritual Narratives”, “Six Women Slave Narratives” and “Collective Black Women’s Narratives”, all from The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers (1988), edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Ph.D.
March 2020, now March 2022. My grandson will be 1 in May. I remember May 2021. Diagnosed with endometrial cancer, June 1, I suddenly found myself in a new sorority — wombfulness. What is a female born person without her womb? Representative, clearly, we are not the sum of our parts, rather we are more than our collective organ function or dysfunction. The tendency to commodify is so easy in a society that parses, slices and distributes, values and devalues by sex in the context of Black Gaia.
After major surgery late July 2021 which removed the diseased womb and her girls to check for cancer cells—none found, I walk through shadow, put out my hands to locate something tangible or solid on the other side. . . it is illusive steel—hard to fathom, yet, I keep walking. I keep walking. It is the movement that connects me to a larger self, “wombfulness gathered.” A collective space I hadn’t known that opened for me March 2021 when I learned the California Department of Corrections had sterilized incarcerated women, just because it could.
Twenty years later, Kelli Dillion, lead plaintiff, heads the reparations movement for redress, which passed. She and other collaborating agencies which led to this decision are now instrumental in sharing this information with women who were so injured who are still alive. Her story is told in the film “Belly of the Beast” (POV). It is a hero’s journey none should have to traverse. There are the roads less traveled and the road we are pushed into by powerful hands on throats, shackled wrists, ankles – legislation that does not protect all, especially the powerless and the more vulnerable, Black women, poor women, incarcerated women. For these women, childbirth is not the time to argue, negotiate.
“Wombfulness Gatherings” One Year Anniversary, March 19, 2022 Program@ African American Center in San Francisco at the SF Main Library, 10-12 noon PT (Virtual)
MAAFA SF Bay Area launched “Wombfulness Gatherings” as a space for Black wom(b)en to share Gaia medicine, folk wisdom from our ancestors and resources for wellness and well-being. We danced, shared stories, read poetry, cried and held one another as some of us did yoni or vaginal streaming on new and full moons, did visioning activities and moved through the calcified into greater clarity. The presentations featured artists, elders from here and elsewhere America and in the Diaspora.
We have a Virtual Wombfulness Gathering, Sat., March 19, 10-12 noon at the SF Main Library, African American Center. It is our 1 Year Anniversary. The next session will start this fall, possibly in September. We are looking for institutional in-kind and financial support. It is hard to sustain a moment out of one’s pocket. Right now, the project is all volunteer. Sessions are free, however, donations are accepted.
Our pressenters at Wombfulness Gatherings 1 Year Anniversary:
At our March 19, 10-12 noon PT, program we feature conversations with Opal Palmer Adisa, Writer, Gender Specialist, and Cultural Activist, is the Former University Director of The Institute for Gender and Development Studies at The University of the West Indies. Adisa believes that literature and the performance arts are the best approaches to interrogate gender inequality and formulate an approach to gender justice. A feminist/activist for four decades, Adisa has published 22 collections, that includes, essays, novels, short stories, poetry collections and children’s books. Her areas of focus are gender-based violence and ending child sexual and physical abuse.
Arisika Razak, Berkeley, CA, has been a midwife, healer, and spiritual dancer for over forty years. Working as a nursemidwife, women’s health advocate and spiritual teacher in the 1980’s, her initial workshops and dances celebrated the power and sacredness of the female body and reflected her belief that we are all embodiments of the sacred, regardless of our sexual orientation, our dis/abilities, our sizes or our experiences. An Associate Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California from 2000 to the present, Arisika is a regular contributor to books, and journals; she presents at numerous conferences on the subjects of diversity, equity and inclusion and the spiritualties, creativity, and resilience of peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora. She is currently a core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland California.
MAIMOUNATA (“Maï”) LINGANI, one of the most well-known & sought after recording artists of Burkina Faso, West Africa. and Marjé is a 25-year-old creative and rhythmic storyteller from Richmond, California. Using the colors and textures of psalms, she weaves together tales that tell the truth of her time as a brown reflection in a muddied river. In her youth, Marjé excelled in spoken word which alloted her the opportunity to compete nationally in the “Brave New Voices” poetry competition. She is remembered as the narrator in the commemorated play “Te’s Harmony” (2013) and later the award-winning documentary “Romeo Is Bleeding” (2015 film festival circuit) & (2017 Def Jam Digital + Netflix publication). In 2019, Marjé released her first musical production entitled “Pretty Brown, Brown”; In which she explored memories of summer-time-freedom in juxtaposition with her new reality as a college dropout
Marjé is a 25-year-old creative and rhythmic storyteller from Richmond, California. Using the colors and textures of psalms, she weaves together tales that tell the truth of her time as a brown reflection in a muddied river. In her youth, Marjé excelled in spoken word which alloted her the opportunity to compete nationally in the “Brave New Voices” poetry competition. She is remembered as the narrator in the commemorated play “Te’s Harmony” (2013) and later the award-winning documentary “Romeo Is Bleeding” (2015 film festival circuit) & (2017 Def Jam Digital + Netflix publication). In 2019, Marjé released her first musical production entitled “Pretty Brown, Brown”; In which she explored memories of summer-time-freedom in juxtaposition with her new reality as a college dropout. Ensuing her musical debut she began curating artistic events across the Bay Area including “The Art Walk” at the legendary Berkeley Flea Market. She’s had the honor of sharing her spoken word on the “Street Soldiers” radio show via 106 KMEL as well as a multitude of Bay Area hot spots. Most recently Marjé’s creative endeavors have also come to include “Two Sistas Sea Moss” a Coop business with sustainable health and wellness in mind. With each artistic development, she aims to awaken the Creator’s righteous children from the 400 year slumber they’ve come to know.
Facilitator, founder, Wombfulness Gatherings 2021-present
Wanda Sabir is a journalist (Wanda’s Picks), college professor, visual artist, Depth Psychologist, and poet who believes in the power of art to change and shape social movements as well as assist in trauma healing and memory reclamation work. Co-founder of Maafa San Francisco Bay Area, she launched in March 2021 “Wombfulness Gatherings.” She is the recipient of the Distinguished 400 Award, 400 Years of African American History Commission, US Dept. of the Interior.
TaSin Sabir: Balancing Creativity and Motherhood
Hot off the presses: “Big Kids Can. . . ” by TaSin Sabir
An Interview with Children’s Book Author, TaSin Sabir
I caught up with TaSin in a Zoom chat one evening late February 2022 for a conversation about her new book staring her sons, Big Kids Can. . .”.
TaSin Sabir uses her love of art to express topics that are important to her. TaSin graduated from California College of the Arts with a BFA in Photography. An Oakland native, TaSin’s artwork has been exhibited all around the Bay Area and Nation. TaSin has published two photography books: Madagascar Made and 100 Families Oakland. And her first children’s book: Big Kids Can (2022). Currently TaSin runs a Photography and Graphic Design business. tasinsabir.com
Wanda Sabir: Tell me about the inspiration for your book: “Big Kids Can. . .”.
TaSin Sabir: “I wanted to combine taking care of kids and doing an art project at the same time for myself. In a way I was documenting them as I made a list of various activities the kids and I participate in.
I took pictures of them brushing their teeth, playing with their blocks, eating breakfast and lunch, gardening. Every other day when I had energy, I’d get them dressed and then we would do one of those activities and I will take a picture of them doing it.”
“At first I didn’t know how to incorporate Hero (the baby), but I took pictures of him too. My original idea was to try to get him to do some of these things too, but he was so small it was impossible. She laughs. “I had all these ideas written in my notebook ideas that might work with the little one.
“Once I had the pictures, I just had to lay it out. Then I looked at the pictures of Hero and his little expressions and I thought, Oh I can have him looking at his big brothers. Lastly I worked on the ending.”
WS: What inspires you?
TS: “You can say I’m inspired by watching the boys learn from each other, copy each other and play with each other. Wise did that with Legend. He always wanted the copy everything Legend did. Even dangerous stuff like climbing really high on furniture when he so little. Now Hero is modeling himself behind his two big brothers. Trying to walk, play with big boy toy trucks. He’s really obsessed with his big brothers, you know?”
WS: “How many months did it take to move from idea to published book?”
TS: “I started taking pictures the end of July 2020, 6 months ago. I took pictures for about a month. I wanted to get the book out fast before they didn’t look like little kids anymore. In July Legend I made 5 and Wise turned two that fall and the baby was still not five months. My goal ultimately was to show them the book.
WS: Who’s your audience”
TS: “First the book is for them and people who know them. I love the book,” the proud mom says. “I don’t know if people want to see pictures of my children.” (Of course they do, the proud grandmother says.)
WS: It’s really nice. I like the promo video. Where’s that posted?
TS: “It’s on Instagram and Facebook.”
WS: The book is $10.00 US, soft cover. Where can people purchase the book?
TS: “It’s all on Lulu’s bookstore. It’s a Drop Shipping place where you can self-publish. They always have sales. Just search for promo codes on the site, if I haven’t flagged one.
WS: I love the imprint LWH —
TS: “Yes that was their father, Shawn Lyles’s idea “The Legend of the Wise Hero.” It was going to be its own book, but I like the name so much I started my own publishing house and I’m going to use it everywhere.
TaSin says she is not sure if she’ll publish other authors; however, she has layed out books for others; however, she likes the challenge of figuring out things and after the logo she created she wanted the book to look professional.
WS: Please talk about the leap from being a fulltime artist, curator and designer to a fulltime mom.
TS: “I kind of feel like I need to create. Even though I don’t have as much time as I used to have, parenting has taught me how to be more decisive with my creations. I don’t have time to vacillate or be indecisive. I’m like, Oh this looks good, I’m done. I trust my instincts more, because I don’t have time to do multiple runs. I think I better designer now, because I’m more confident – I don’t have time to second-guess myself.
“I can think creative parenting teaches you how to multitask on your feet at a heightened whole crazy new level.
“Whatever I do, I like to do it well. It’s a lot of juggling. It’s not one or the other, I have to parent. I have to create. They always mesh, but it’s nice as with this book ‘Big Kids Can,’ it feels more geared towards me. Instead of thinking of creative ways to teach kindergarten, I have created a book while parenting.”
WS: You’re documenting the parenting creatively. You have make something tangible rather that facilitating an experience you can preserve and give to them years later.
The book freezes these precious moments the audience shares with you. The design itself is so pretty. The pages are filled with bright collage that bleeds across margins and off the edges. And the boys look life-like. How did you do that?
TS: “I used stock images with watercolor.
WS: I really like the gardening one and the painting one with the easel –Wise Deen has paint on his chin and his nose.
TS: “Children’s books are so bright and fun. I had to make it appealing. I don’t think it would have been as exciting if I had the boys playing with blocks in my living room.”
WS: The boys look really happy in their photos brushing their teeth, cutting bananas, eating breakfast — Wise with all his toys around him.
Congratulations on your first children’s book I hope it flies off the shelf and you get all kinds of accolades and awards.
TS: “It’s always been a goal of mine to publish a children’s book. I feel really excited that it’s done. I have been thinking about doing a children’s book forever. Yeah it only took like 6 or 7-8 months.”
WS: Good, good I’m glad you got it off your bucket list.
Films
American Reckoning, a film by Yoruba Richen and Brad Lichtenstein, streaming on Frontline PBS
Before I watched “American Reckoning,” directed by Yoruba Richen and Brad Lichtenstein, I thought it was going to be another tragedy. You know, Black victims and white saints and demons who flee into whiteness and get away dry bones in their wake. I just wasn’t feeling yet another Maafa story, a story where Black people are killed and no one bleeds in return. Whew, I should have known better given the track record of the creative team—Richen (The Killing of Breonna Taylor) and Lichtenstein (Ghosts of Attica). “The Reckoning” is a resistance story, a successful one, that unrolls like a crime mystery.
True there is violence and death, but the folks in Natchez were not rolling over. They were fighting back. The story is also yet another American story that shows bad guys getting away and Black people without resolution. Mumia Abu Jamal says in his book by the same title: Black life does not matter, never has.
American Reckoning, one film in a Frontline series, “Un(re)solved which looks at the cold cases from the Civil Rights Era which until Congressman John Lewis’s Emmett Till Act, which supports the investigation of these cases. Unfortunately, of the case investigated, there have been no successful prosecution. Only 21 remain un(re)solved of the 150 cases. In most cases, the killers have since died. No one, so far, is charged when in the Jackson case and others. We learn that in the Wharlest case, the guilty parties were well-known.
The Deacons of Defense feature prominently as does the brother of Medgar Evers, NAACP Field Secretary (July 2, 1925-June 12, 1963) who was killed in his Jackson, MS, driveway. Charles Evers (Sept. 11, 1922-July 22, 2020) plays a key role in the Natchez organizing. (He later becomes the first Black mayor of a Mississippi city, “Fayette” (1985-1989), since Reconstruction era.
George Metcalfe, NAACP President, who survives a car bombing, also features prominently in the compelling film. The Deacons show up with arms for the men who defend their communities. It is fascinating history many do not know, especially Black youth. The Natchez community uses boycotts and other effective strategies to economically bring the city to its knees. Those white businesses were closing their doors and so the mayor agrees to the ten demands, among the demands hiring Black police officers, hiring Black people for jobs formerly closed to them like supervisory positions in the auto factory. Conditions got a little better for the Black folks in town. Jackson applied for a job, previous reserved for white workers. He was supervising men who hated him. The raise just five cents, but it wasn’t about the money.
The KKK marched legally through town, their visual presence a terrorist act, nothing was done to protect Jackson— No one was shocked when one of these racists wired NAACP leader, Wharlest Jackson’s truck with explosives. Jackson was targeted precisely because he stood up. His bereaved wife and five children’s lives were destroyed, yet the family kept asking questions and pushing for resolution, if not, justice.
It is also crazy how the killer was known, yet for some reason he escaped prosecution.
It’s also crazy how the editor of the town’s newspaper told the offspring who killed their dad 40 years ago.
Wharlest Jackson was one of many righteous folks fighting for his freedom. He challenged the racial system and was killed because he took a job from a white man. The raise just five cents. The killer who wired his truck with explosives wanted to kill children and other innocents. Justice and Black people live on different blocks previously gentrified.
The film shares an important story that most of us don’t know. We need to learn this history: the lives taken by cowards whose lives were threatened by a people who decided to defend their community as they marched for civil rights. These were working people who cut hair, fixed cars, cooked meals and mopped floors. Wharlest Jackson had three jobs, not including cooking meals and combing hair when his wife got lupus.
Political rhetoric then and now continues to be a fiction, given the safe position racialized terror groups like the KKK have license to torment and kill and maim Black people without interference from Natchez law enforcement who institutes a curfew and calls in the national guard when Black people organize an economic boycott of all white owned stores when the mayor refuses to grant the community’s 10 demands following the explosion maiming
The use of economic sanctions is only highlighted in Montgomery. Everyone knows the year long boycott of mass transit. However, this successful Natchez story makes one wonder where else were similar strategies used. These Black men had guns. If they hadn’t, there would have been a different outcome. Richen references the documentary, “Black Natchez” (1967) which aired on National Educational Television (predecessor to National Public Broadcasting). Directed by Ed Pincus and David Neuman. “If Black people had made this film, what would it have looked like? How would it have been different, if it would have been different? We weren’t given access, obviously, at that time to tell our own stories.”
This has changed, Black directors do have access, so American Reckoning is from a different perspective – historical and present, what unfolds is a truth coached in historic context. Wharlest Jackson’t children are adults when we visit Natchez with directors, yet the story has multiple chapters written almost daily. When will this assault on justice stop?
It’s great seeing Congressman Lewis and learn about the Emmett Till Act regarding civil rights era cold cases. Unfortunately, there is no justice: 150 cases, 21 left, no convictions. I had a great interview with the directors last month.
To watch visit https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/american-reckoning/
(Read the interview online at wandaspicks.com)
Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America, directed by Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler
A Review and Interview by Wanda Sabir
In Jeffrey Robinson’s (Producer/Writer) “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America,” directed by Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler, audiences look at the birth of this nation and how 55 years after the Kerner Report, (July 1967), 156 years after first Civil Rights Bill – ratified April 9, 1866 just after the Civil War—followed by CRA March 1, 1875, CRA Sept. 9, 1957, CRA 1964 and CRA 1968, not much has changed for Black people in America. What makes this chronicle unique is the discussant’s life which anchors and centers a narrative that is surprising, not because we didn’t know it was so bad, but the facts that lend themselves to the tragedy.
Robinson states that his parents were unicorns and his childhood (and life) a fable or fairytale. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, he and his three siblings, grew up loved and protected. He says that he wasn’t the smartest kid in town; however, he was able to graduate from Harvard Law School and have a varied legal career as a public defender in Seattle where he represented indigent clients in state and federal court.
As litigant for the ACLU, Robinson was one of the original members of the John Adams Project where he worked on behalf of one of the five men held at Guantanamo Bay charged with carrying out the 9/11 attacks. Yet, when his wife’s sister died and her son, Matt (13), came to live with him and his wife, Robinson says: “What started out as a search in my attempt to help my nephew deal with the challenges of racism in America turned into an education I was not expecting.”
Part TED Talk with music, charts, statistics and video—part facts spliced with living examples of the phenomena, “Who We Are” is a “Racism 2022 Road Trip.”
Emily Kunsler, director, handles an 11 passenger van with her daughter, sister, Sarah aboard, mother aboard; Robinson, of course and his wife, plus a few others. Between interviews, Robinson and company debrief (sometimes on camera). We witness Robinson unpacking some of the really hard moments.
The brilliant way the directors splice Robinson’s taped conversations with the in the moment interviews with mothers, like Gwen Carr (Eric Garner) and others family members who lost loved ones to state violence; families who are still grieving the killing of their brother, son, friend, husband—plus multiple survivors of racial terrorism and terrorist landmarks and monuments like the Lynching Tree in Charleston, SC; places like the Old Slave Mart Museum also in Charleston and monuments to civil war massacres and murderers. Such sites and testimony show these sites, sounds, stories from multiple perspectives as camera shifts from presenter to participant. We see Robinson shed tears and get angry as logic and bigotry refuse to share space.
This history lesson needs no popcorn. Not only will you stay in your seat, you will look for references to read later to understand more completely the discourse which moves too quickly to comprehend its magnitude. Most of what we know about American history is a cleaned up version of the founding story from Francis Scott Keys’ poem excerpted for the National Anthem to the polished lies and laws in documents like the Constitution of the United States that kept enslaved persons enslaved and ensured Black lives legally never matter.
Emily and Sarah Kunstler saw Robinson’s presentation and suggested the idea for a film. Reluctant at first, the trust grew over the 12 years or so it took to bring the project to completion. As Robinson traveled the country with his presentation, he spoke to other citizens about human rights. The interviews, as mentioned, are interspersed with the presentation. Like a dance, the live and scripted conversations woven together show the complex nature of racism in American.
From Mother Lessie Benningfield Randle, born in 1914, one of the last remaining survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 to Dr. Tiffany Crutcher, activist and twin sister of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed 40-year-old man who was shot and killed in Tulsa, when his car stalled on a city street, to Senator Henry “Hank” Sanders and his wife Faya Ora Rose Touré discussion of a name change for the bridge names after a Grand Dragon of the Klu Klux Klan: Edmund Pettis Bridge to Freedom Bridge.
Tami Sawyer, a Memphis County Commissioner and political activist looks tired when the two confederate monuments finally come down. She says she is tired because, “We had to fight so hard. I had friends who went to jail for this, a woman was killed for this. [While this] statue came down . . . almost another 1000 stand across the country. People are working harder to protect them, [yet they] tell us that ‘we are wrong’ or ‘attention seekers’ than they are to reconcile and get to a point of truth and understanding about who these people were.”
Robinson states that all the Confederate monuments and memorials were built in the twentieth century. He says these men are honored for their bloodshed, not for any particularly honorable act. These monuments are built for men who upheld the rights of the enslavers and killed those in the war who fought against these rights.
Dr. King’s killing and that of Larry Payne (Robinson’s peer) who was killed with a shotgun blast to the chest (at close range) by a Memphis police officer during the 1968 sanitation workers strike opens the story. The officer never faced charges and Ms. Carolyn Payne, his sister’s family have never received an apology from the City of Memphis.
The stories are true and painful, especially when juxtaposed with the racial epithet running like supertitles across the narrative of this nation no matter who is in office—Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, Bush Jr. and Bush Sr., even Barack Obama. All have blood on their hands.
In a recent interview, I spoke to Robinson and the directors about the film, which is opening opened throughout the nation in February. “Who We Are in America” is now a project with a mission to give space to documenting these stories so that there is an historic record. Here is a link to the “We Are America Project:” https://www.weareamericaproject.com/ The film is released on Sony Classics. Read the interview on wandaspicks.com.
Alameda Island Poets, 1st Wednesday Poetry Reading, 7-9 PM PT
Alameda Poet Laureate, Kimi Sugioka. Our “famously friendly” open mic follows features. All are welcome. Please RSVP to this email.peace, passion, and poetry, Cathy Dana, President, Alameda Island PoetsAlameda Poet Laureate Emerita
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88484893144?pwd=anRqZStWcXpNNlVhRHpmaFp3SnloZz09
Meeting ID: 884 8489 3144
Passcode: poetry
Avotcja is an award-winning poet, playwright, multi-percussionist, photographer and teacher. She has been published in English & Spanish in the USA, Mexico & Europe. She is also a popular Bay Area DJ & Radio Personality & leader of the group “Avotcja & Modúpue” (The Bay Area Blues Society’s Jazz Group Of The Year in 2005 & 2010). Avotcja teaches Creative Writing & Drama & is a proud member of DAMO (Disability Advocates Of Minorities Org.), PEN Oakland, California Poets In The Schools, Local 1000 American Federation of Musicians and is an ASCAP recording artist.
Born and raised in the Philippines, Elizabeth Peláez Norris has been a long time resident of the San Francisco Bay Area. She holds Master’s degrees in Spanish and Education. She retired from a 40 year career in teaching, 35 of which were at St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda where she taught Spanish and English. In 1991, she founded and served as adviser to PRISMS, the school’s award-winning literary/art magazine for 26 years. Her first collection of poetry, Inner Voices, received Artist Embassy International’s Literary Cultural Award in 2010. Echoes of Inner Voices is her second collection of poetry. Her poems echo her themes devoted to poetry itself, nature, the forgotten, memory, whimsy, heart and spirit. They range from the serious and reflective to the playful and amusing. Like the spectrum of light refracted through a prism, her poetry varies in color from bright to tenebrous, a rainbow to enjoy beside a quiet window. Both books are available from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
Brookings Institure: The Commission of the Social Status of Black Men and Boys, Mon., March 14, 2022, 12-1:15 PM, ET
A conversation on the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys Monday, March 14, 2022, 12:00 – 1:15 p.m. EDT Online: https://www.brookings.edu/events/commission-on-the-social-status-of-black-boys-and-men/ |
Momentum is building to address the most severe and pervasive problems facing Black people in America, due in large part to the disproportional impact of the pandemic on Black communities and widespread racialized violence. Black boys and men, in particular, run the gauntlet of a specific brand of racism, at the sharp intersection of race and gender. The result is a longstanding pattern of poor intergenerational outcomes for them. The unique challenges facing Black boys and men require a specific set of policy responses, from the earliest days of life through adulthood. In August 2020, President Trump signed bipartisan legislation to create the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys, a 19-member council tasked with studying the social status of Black men and boys and recommending policy solutions. Now that commission members have been appointed and have convened twice, what exactly is the role of a congressional commission, and what should President Biden and the commission focus their energy on? On Monday, March 14, experts, members of Congress, and members of the commission will discuss the unique role of the newly established commission. Viewers can submit questions for speakers by emailing events@brookings.edu or via Twitter using #BlackMenandBoysCommission. IntroductionRichard Reeves, John C. and Nancy D. Whitehead Chair, Senior Fellow and Director, Future of the Middle Class Initiative, Brookings | @RichardvReeves RemarksThe Hon. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), U.S. Senate | @marcorubio RemarksThe Hon. Frederica F. Wilson (D-Fla.), U.S. House of Representatives | @RepWilson Panel discussion Camille Busette, Senior Fellow and Director, Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative | @CamilleBusette Joseph Marshall, Founder and Executive Director, Alive & Free | @AliveAndFreeRX Ian Rowe, Resident Fellow, Domestic Policy Studies, AEI | @ianvrowe Marvin Williams, Program Manager, Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys Moderator: Rashawn Ray, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Brookings | @SociologistRay |
Wanda’s Picks February 2022
In WHO WE ARE — A CHRONICLE OF RACISM IN AMERICA, Jeffery Robinson (writer, producer) faces his largest audience, asking all of us to examine who we are, where we come from, and who we want to be.
Who We Are – A Chronicle of Racism in America is a Sony Pictures Classic Documentary, runs 118 minutes, and is not yet rated by the MPA.
Interweaving lecture, personal anecdotes, interviews, and shocking revelations, in WHO WE ARE — A Chronicle of Racism in America, criminal defense/civil rights lawyer Jeffery Robinson draws a stark timeline of anti-Black racism in the United States, from slavery to the modern myth of a post-racial America.
REFLECTING ON THE HISTORY OF BLACK STUDIES: WHY DOES IT MATTER?
OPENS IN Bay Area THEATERS February 4, 11, 25:
February 4
Elmwood 3 Theater, Berkeley
Embarcadero Center Cinema, San Francisco
Metreon 15 & IMAX, San Francisco
AMC Saratoga 14, San Jose
East Ridge Mall 15, San Jose
Smith Rafael Film Center, San Rafael
February 11
Century 16 Downtown, Pleasant Hill
Century 20 Downtown, Redwood City
February 25
Tower Theater 3, Sacramento
3 Below Theater, San Jose
Del Mar Theater, Santa Cruz
Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America, directed by Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler
A Review by Wanda Sabir
In Jeffrey Robinson’s (Producer/Writer) “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America,” directed by Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler, audiences look at the birth of this nation and how 55 years after the Kerner Report, (July 1967), 156 years after first Civil Rights Bill – ratified April 9, 1866 just after the Civil War—followed by CRA March 1, 1875, CRA Sept. 9, 1957, CRA 1964 and CRA 1968, not much has changed for Black people in America. What makes this chronicle unique is the discussant’s life which anchors and centers a narrative that is surprising, not because we didn’t know it was so bad, but the facts that lend themselves to the tragedy.
Robinson states that his parents were unicorns and his childhood (and life) a fable or fairytale. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, he and his three siblings, grew up loved and protected. He says that he wasn’t the smartest kid in town; however, he was able to graduate from Harvard Law School and have a varied legal career as a public defender in Seattle where he represented indigent clients in state and federal court.
As litigant for the ACLU, Robinson was one of the original members of the John Adams Project where he worked on behalf of one of the five men held at Guantanamo Bay charged with carrying out the 9/11 attacks. Yet, when his wife’s sister died and her son, Matt (13), came to live with him and his wife, Robinson says: “What started out as a search in my attempt to help my nephew deal with the challenges of racism in America turned into an education I was not expecting.”
Part TED Talk with music, charts, statistics and video—part facts spliced with living examples of the phenomena, “Who We Are” is a “Racism 2022 Road Trip.”
Emily Kunsler, director, handles an 11 passenger van with her daughter, sister, Sarah aboard, mother aboard; Robinson, of course and his wife, plus a few others. Between interviews, Robinson and company debrief (sometimes on camera). We witness Robinson unpacking some of the really hard moments.
The brilliant way the directors splice Robinson’s taped conversations with the in the moment interviews with mothers, like Gwen Carr (Eric Garner) and others family members who lost loved ones to state violence; families who are still grieving the killing of their brother, son, friend, husband—plus multiple survivors of racial terrorism and terrorist landmarks and monuments like the Lynching Tree in Charleston, SC; places like the Old Slave Mart Museum also in Charleston and monuments to civil war massacres and murderers. Such sites and testimony show these sites, sounds, stories from multiple perspectives as camera shifts from presenter to participant. We see Robinson shed tears and get angry as logic and bigotry refuse to share space.
This history lesson needs no popcorn. Not only will you stay in your seat, you will look for references to read later to understand more completely the discourse which moves too quickly to comprehend its magnitude. Most of what we know about American history is a cleaned up version of the founding story from Francis Scott Keys’ poem excerpted for the National Anthem to the polished lies and laws in documents like the Constitution of the United States that kept enslaved persons enslaved and ensured Black lives legally never matter.
Emily and Sarah Kunstler saw Robinson’s presentation and suggested the idea for a film. Reluctant at first, the trust grew over the 12 years or so it took to bring the project to completion. As Robinson traveled the country with his presentation, he spoke to other citizens about human rights. The interviews, as mentioned, are interspersed with the presentation. Like a dance, the live and scripted conversations woven together show the complex nature of racism in American.
From Mother Lessie Benningfield Randle, born in 1914, one of the last remaining survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 to Dr. Tiffany Crutcher, activist and twin sister of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed 40-year-old man who was shot and killed in Tulsa, when his car stalled on a city street, to Senator Henry “Hank” Sanders and his wife Faya Ora Rose Touré discussion of a name change for the bridge names after a Grand Dragon of the Klu Klux Klan: Edmund Pettis Bridge to Freedom Bridge.
Tami Sawyer, a Memphis County Commissioner and political activist looks tired when the two confederate monuments finally come down. She says she is tired because, “We had to fight so hard. I had friends who went to jail for this, a woman was killed for this. [While this] statue came down . . . almost another 1000 stand across the country. People are working harder to protect them, [yet they] tell us that ‘we are wrong’ or ‘attention seekers’ than they are to reconcile and get to a point of truth and understanding about who these people were.”
Robinson states that all the Confederate monuments and memorials were built in the twentieth century. He says these men are honored for their bloodshed, not for any particularly honorable act. These monuments are built for men who upheld the rights of the enslavers and killed those in the war who fought against these rights.
Dr. King’s killing and that of Larry Payne (Robinson’s peer) who was killed with a shotgun blast to the chest (at close range) by a Memphis police officer during the 1968 sanitation workers strike opens the story. The officer never faced charges and Ms. Carolyn Payne, his sister’s family have never received an apology from the City of Memphis.
The stories are true and painful, especially when juxtaposed with the racial epithet running like supertitles across the narrative of this nation no matter who is in office—Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, Bush Jr. and Bush Sr., even Barack Obama. All have blood on their hands.
In a recent interview, I spoke to Robinson and the directors about the film, which is opening this week throughout the nation. “Who We Are in America” is now a project with a mission to give space to documenting these stories so that there is an historic record.
Toni Stone, 1st Black Woman to play for a Men’s Professional Baseball Team, is Google Doodle’s homerun, Feb. 9, 2022
Toni Stone, born as Marcenia Lyle Stone in West Virginia, was the first of three women to play professional baseball full-time for the Indianapolis Clowns, in the previously all-male Negro leagues. This also made her the first woman to play as a regular on an American big-league professional baseball team. WikipediaBorn: July 17, 1921, Bluefield, WV Died: November 2, 1996, Alameda County, CA
Lecture
Temple University’s Dept. of Africology presents: The History of Black Studies with Dr. Abdul Alkaimat, moderated by Molefi K. Asante Registration link
Zaccho Dance Theatre’s World Premiere: Love a State of Grace @Grace Cathedral, Feb. 11, 12, 17, 18
A performance and ritual installation at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral
February 11, 12, 17, and 18 performances. For tickets: https://zacchograce.brownpapertickets.com
With over 90-foot ceilings, stained glass, and multiple chambers, Grace Cathedral will provide a multifaceted platform of many vantage points for audiences. The rhythms and height of Grace’s Gothic design also present unique challenges for Zaccho Dance Theatre Artistic Director Joanna Haigood’s choreography. Haigood will be choreographing the dancers’ movements using original props created by collaborating designers Wayne Campbell and Sean Riley, such as an anchored 90-foot ladder and 70-foot swinging pendulum.
Love, a state of grace will feature some of the Bay Area’s most talented aerial dancers who will interact with original props created by collaborating designers Wayne Campbell and Sean Riley. These props include an anchored 90-foot ladder and 70-foot swinging pendulum, each a unique response to the rhythms and height of Grace Cathedral’s Gothic design.
Composer Walter Kitundu’s sound score will incorporate recorded material, the activation of live acoustic instruments within the space, the Cathedral’s massive pipe organ, and voices of a small choir, all in conversation with the Cathedral’s cavernous interior space and prolonged reverberation. Artist theologians Yohana Junker and Claudío Cavalhaes will design a series of meditations and small rituals with which the audience may engage throughout the Cathedral. At the heart of each ritual, the question that emerges is how to intimate and love our places, our bodies, our communities, our land otherwise.
VIDEO TRAILER: https://vimeo.com/630195772
Haigood explains that originally Love, a state of grace was conceived to be a response to the rise in violent attacks and vandalism directed at sacred places in the United States and was intended to bring together diverse communities to share and celebrate our common humanity and the tenets of love in religious practice.
“Since we began the work, our country has been experiencing the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of social uprisings against racial injustice,” says Haigood. “In light of this we have reframed Love, a state of grace to include reflection and dialogue around these issues.” She adds, “It is our hope that our shared experience will reaffirm the role of kindness, compassion, love, and righteous social action in the national healing process.”
Zaccho’s community partner, Grace Cathedral, has a well established tradition as a cross-cultural sanctuary. Its leadership and innovative programming has inspired much of the conceptual aspects of this work. Performances will be followed by panel discussions with activists, artists and theologians, who will discuss the concept of “otherness” and strategies that lead to greater acceptance and understanding.
Virtual Fireside Chat – Aging with Dignity and Respect through the intersectionality of the labor force and resources – Building a workforce that is reflective of the needs of Black Women and the Black Women’s aging experience with: the Hon. Cheryl Brown, Commissioner, CA Commission on Aging; Sylvia Ivie Drew, Special Advisor to the President, Charles R. Drew University; Delane Sims, Founder & CEO, Senior Moments; and April Verrett, President, SEIU 2015.
Please register here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJElcempqzkrH9G3BAmHgN_IhUp_xagyunok
Frontline presents: American Reckoning
Visit https://www.pbs.org/video/american-reckoning-preview/
Poetry
32nd Annual Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry, Sat., Feb. 19, 10-12 noon PT
We are dedicating the 32nd Annual Celebration of African American & African Diaspora Poets and Their Poetry program to Al Young and bell hooks. This year the theme is African American Health and Wellness. However, all themes are welcome.
We are featuring Baba Kalamu ya Salaam with an open mic. Sign up in advance if you are a poet of African American descent. We will have open mic sprinkled in with the featured artists.
To participate, register in advance for Sat., Feb. 19, 2022, 10-12 noon PT:https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcpdu6rrzwjE9JQfvgUECVkX_rDVMtqVEpw & To watch: FB.com/wandaspicks
For information: wolaacp@gmail.com
Alameda Island Poets (AIPoets) TONIGHT features Dee Allen, Mimi Tempestt, and Lorraine Bonner, Wed. 2/2, 7pm on Zoom
Dee Allen is an African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. Active on creative writing & Spoken Word since the early 1990s. Author of 7 books–Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater, Skeletal Black [ all from POOR Press ], Elohi Unitsi [ Conviction 2 Change Publishing ] and coming in February 2022, Rusty Gallows: Passages Against Hate [ Vagabond Books ] and Plans [ Nomadic Press ]–and 45 anthology appearances under his figurative belt so far.
Alameda Island Poets celebrates Black History Month, featuring Mimi Tempestt, Lorraine Bonner, and Dee Allen launching two new books: Rusty Gallows: Passages Against Hate and Plans. Our Youth Poet is Jaylin Higgins from Alameda Community Learning Center. Hosts are Cathy Dana and Alameda Poet Laureate, Kimi Sugioka. Our “famously friendly” open mic follows features.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88484893144?pwd=anRqZStWcXpNNlVhRHpmaFp3SnloZz09
Meeting ID: 884 8489 3144
Passcode: poetry
The African American Steering Committee for Health and Wellness (AASCHW)
BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2022: CHANGING THE NARRATIVE: Eliminating Negative Stereotypes About Black People
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2022, 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM (PST)
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: ROLAND MARTIN – “ROLAND MARTIN UNFILTERED”
Presentation/Discussion Topic: Media Bias and the Negative Portrayal of Black People in the News.
(This Event Will Also Provide Entertainment)
Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Xl8N6aQwTkihqj2M2LwgTw
ID# 839 8258 4892
Call In Numbers: US: +16699006833,,83982584892 or +12532158782,,83982584892
EVENT SPONSORS
Berkeley Juneteenth Cultural Celebrations –Berkeley Black Ecumenical Ministerial Alliance – African American/Black Professionals & Community Network, Inc. – Berkeley NAACP – Cevo Presents – The Center For Food, Faith & Justice – Berkeley Jr. Jackets – Black Repertory Group, Inc. – African American Steering Committee for Health and Wellness
12th Annual African/Black Psychology Conference
Register Now
The 12th Annual African/Black Psychology Conference |
THEME |
Community Crises & Care: Pathways to Healing Beyond the Pandemics |
DATE: Friday, February 11, 2022 TIME FRAME: 9:00 am – 8:00 pm EST LOCATION: Virtual HOST: Department of PsychologyCollege of Social Sciences, Arts, & Humanities Florida A&M University OVERVIEW: Throughout the world, Africana communities are grappling with a convergence of pandemics. We are currently (re)experiencing how a new crisis—the COVID-19 pandemic—exacerbates ongoing crises, such as state violence and climate disaster. An African proverb informs us that “in the moment of crisis, the wise build bridges and the foolish build dams.” The 12th Annual African/Black Psychology Conference explores how Africana communities are mitigating crises, while promoting communal care. Centering African wisdom in our analyses, we identify pathways to healing beyond the pandemics that will guide the building of bridges. |
CONTINUING EDUCATION UNITS |
Seven (7) Continuing Education Units (CEUs) will be given for an additional cost of $25. The CEU provider is the North Florida Chapter of the Association of Black Psychologists, a Florida Board of Psychology approved provider. |
Lecture
Community Based Learning Training Series
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- …
- 32
- Next Page »