April 14, 2022 By admin

Souljourning for Truth Project

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

April 8, 2022 By admin

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

https://oaklandlibrary.bibliocommons.com/events/625a009ee132133d00a414ed

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

Link to register Here: https://bit.ly/YRNTALNEworkshop

It’s Springtime and the African American Outreach Project is gearing up for our **Free** April workshop for caregivers of loved ones who are struggling with mental health issues. As part of our efforts to empower our community, the theme for the workshop is: **A Psychiatrist’s Advice & Navigating Legal Issues – for Families and Caregivers**.

We will be presenting Aaron Chapman, MD who will speak on “Psychiatry: Treating the Whole Person – Body, Mind and Spirit”. We are also excited to host Attorney Sabah Muhammad who will share her expertise with a presentation on “How The Law Impacts Mental Health Clients and Their Families”. The zoom workshop will be held on **Saturday, April 23, 2022**; **from 9:30 am to 2 pm.** Participants can register using the link below, and a zoom link for the actual workshop will be sent out on the day before the event to all registrants. For those people who wish to attend by phone, the phone number (510)697-8533 can be used to register. As always, feel free to reach out by email or phone with any questions that you may have regarding this event. We hope that you will join us for a dynamic day of helpful information as we create resilience in our
community. Link to register Here: https://bit.ly/YRNTALNEworkshop

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:

Mildred Howard’s The House that Will Not Pass for Any Cooor than Its Own@ Belvedere Plaza, Manhattan

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

**Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita** • **SUBA Trio**

Tribute to Founding Member of the Watts Writers Workshop

**Join Zoom Meeting:** https://compton-edu.zoom.us/j/96860492221?pwd=RDJrMWlkd3plbmtuR3ZveFFncDA4dz09
**Meeting ID: 968 6049 2221 Passcode: 182918**

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 5^th, 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.

Friday April 8

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

Saturday 9^th :Sacred Journey

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 12^{th (Neptune-Jupiter)}

Altar deconstruction. 1:00-5:00

Closing song

Shopping

Sight-seeing

Departures

Monday,11^th. 1:00-5:00 pm

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 16^th: 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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsvlrfKevZg&ab_channel=PowerlinesProductions

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOTUd0n5hxM&ab_channel=truly

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.

March 1, 2022 By admin

Wanda’s Picks March 2022

L-R Keldamuzik (“Valerie”), Monique Hightower-Gaskin (“Cloe”), and Elizabeth Jones (“Claudette”) star in Theatre Rhinoceros’s production Trey Anthony’s *How Black Mothers Say I Love You*, directed by Tanika Baptiste. Photo by Vince Thomas.

Liasten to the director, Tanika Baptiste and Carla Banudejesus on Wanda’s Picks Radio or watch @ FB.com/WandasPicks

Congratulations to Dr. Vickie Alexander, founder of Healthy Black Families, on her 80^th 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.

https://digitalscholarship.cca.edu/cleopatra.html).

[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.

https://edmonialewis.org/elBlog/index.php/2021/02/23/forever-free-1867/

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.

Facebook.com/wombfulnest

“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:

Dr. Opal Palmer Adisa

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.

Wanda Sabir

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

**Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler, Directors**

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/

RSVP to watch

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

January 5, 2022 By admin

Wanda’s Picks January 2022

The Body Has Seasons

I have been reflecting this past month on forgiveness and gratitude. I want to believe people do the best they can with what they know. Sometimes we are privileged to have people in our lives that offer guidance. However, all of us are not so lucky. I think it is luck, although it is easy to believe that some of us are on the wrong lists. When are my sweepstakes or lottery tickets going to cash in?  Even if I gambled, there is still a chance I might lose so why put one’s hope in such a shallow basket?

I don’t think people, especially, close kinfolk— parents, intentionally harm their children. The parents doing a good job outnumber those who are not, but the bad parents get all the publicity. This is not to say parents who are doing well don’t make mistakes too.

Harmed people harm others . . . not to mention how much easier it is to surrender than to resist, fight, oppose. It is also easy to harm those who are physically weaker and dependent like children.

Agency is a choice many people are too weakened to step into. Often, we—the abused, find ourselves alone, which is also a choice. The crowded sidewalks hold the beautiful people fashionably gowned.

When I think about children harmed, I am happy I am not the creator and don’t have any responsibility for other grown people’s actions. We learn as Muslims to stop wrong with our hands and if we cannot stop the harm from happening with our hands, bodies; then to speak against it. Lastly, we can walk away from it. This is the weakest defense. Getting involved takes courage, because you might be alone in this decision. The harmed person might not support the interference (Hadith 34, 40 Hadith an-Nawawi).

So anyway, I am thinking about these big questions as the Gregorian calendar ends and another starts. I am the Adult Child of an Alcoholic (ACA). My father was my qualifier. I hadn’t known one of the casualties in such a household are the children who lose their childhood and if we survive grow up thinking dysfunction is normal. I learned about ACA a month ago. I’d been attending AlAnon, a 12-step program for friends and families of alcoholics more off than on since 2019. When I say alcoholics, I also include narcotics and related behaviors like incest and spousal abuse. I hadn’t known that there was a whole program just for the ACA.

I have been to two ACA meetings at this writing and well, I am angry again with my father. I also learned that this forgiveness thing is expiration date stamped. Daddy’s been dead for 28 years and I forgave him formally when I was 59 years old. He died when he was 59. So anyway, when I read that ACA folks grieve their lost childhoods and part of the recovery is to parent the “lost child” within, I was like “whoa?! Hold up. I took Daddy’s photo off the altar and have been reflecting with his spirit on forgiveness, atonement and grace.

It is a process. However, I don’t want to carry this grief for my lost childhood into the New Year unaddressed. I am a person who believes ritual is a way to address spirit-related issues. In October-November 2021, I attended the second year of “Nine Layers of the Soul.” A virtual program, it began on Oct. 31 and featured healers throughout the African Diaspora, many located in the SF Bay Area like Iya Wanda Ravernell, Yeye Luisah Teish and Iya Nedra Williams. During the opening three-hour program, one of the presenters shared her ancestor elevation practice. I knew then, I had to do this for my Dad. I added repentance when I learned of ACA and got angry two weeks ago.

I started Dec. 20 and plan to continue through Dec. 27. Daily I offer two rakats for Tawuf or Repentance, followed by libations and readings from the Holy Qur’an about forgiveness, parents and children, wellness and gratitude. I close with music, mostly Abdullah Ibrahim whom my father introduced to me and whom we both enjoy. (I’d compiled a soundtrack for my father’s birthday earlier.) I dance to the songs and then greet my Dad until the next day.  The first day, I offered him a little food.

I plan to end the ascension and repentance ritual with an offering in my father’s name to an organization that addresses a problem my father actively participated in. I looked into organizations that address spousal abuse in the Muslim Community. There are a couple here in California, one in the SF Bay and another in Sacramento. I was hoping to find an organization that sought out Black American Muslim women. I wonder, what sisters are doing to keep themselves safe. It is even harder now given the pandemic. I got divorced 34 years ago. I had no safe house options then. No one talked about spousal abuse in the community. I was in Oakland and San Francisco Muslim communities.

When my mother was hopping from one friend’s home to another when my father was threatening, more than 50 years ago, there were no safe houses for her with two small children. Why is there so much silence in the Black community, especially the Muslim community, American Muslim community about this?

After over 30 years in therapy, when do I get to be well? No one ever mentioned ACA or Alateen or AlAnon to me when I was a kid growing up in the Nation of Islam, a young adult, a grown woman. Officials knew my dad drank. They would send him home and eventually, he stopped attending. My mother didn’t have anyone to talk to. I never heard anyone talk about spousal abuse to even feel safe talking about this as a teenager and later as a victim myself.

Not one therapist in the past 30 years has recommended AlAnon or ACA! I can only imagine the difference Alateen would have made to my life when I was 12-13-14-15-16 before I married my father over and over again starting at 19 . I am dating him now.

American Muslim men, Black men, are marrying multiple wives, many from Africa or Indonesia then after 18 years (for example) adding another woman to the mix, these new wives 20-30-40 or more years younger than the American husband(s). This happens to Black American Muslim women too, who know, as the second, third etc. wife, she has no rights, because polygamy is not recognized in America.

It’s the “rich American” syndrome. Everything is for sale. Women sell themselves to perspective husbands for a small price—sex, procreation. There should be a law against this, however “hislam” supports such acts. These are Hadith citing men who wear kufis, recite Arabic, make Hajj, pay zakat . . . who exploit female vulnerabilities –

Marriage vows also have expiration dates. Married at 25, divorced at 42. The old wife must welcome the sister-wife or perhaps leave her comfortable home penniless (often) without her children. This part – parental rights, she can fight in America; however, the poverty is almost expected.  The first wife submits.

I wonder about the sins of the fathers on present generations and how no hands are clean when we think about the legacy of slavery and what our ancestors suffered, especially the women and girl children, and often boy children too. What these ancestors witnessed, what they had to participate in and the unaddressed soul wounds their descendants carry from those ancestors forward.

I am praying for my father’s soul.

The expired forgiveness stamp needs renewal, so I can begin again with myself and the child inside who needs caring for. I am reading Honoree Fanonne Jeffers’s first novel, “The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois (2021), great saga. I wonder as I read this book about the trauma and sexual violence of enslavement and its aftermath then to now and how secrets harm both the one who is silent and those who need to know. Add to this cocktail colorism and see how love doesn’t protect or erase the damage racism does to the psyche of the “dark child.” Why do people “pass” or pretend to be something they are not, even when the color of power is that of the perpetrator?

The victims still aspire to be it—him, her, them.

It’s a sickness that gets played out in the home, my home, your homes. It’s the children, especially the girls and women who suffer. Are there any families untouched by incest and sexual violence either as victims or perpetrators? How do you know when no one wants to talk about it? Blaming does not fix the problem. Ignoring the problem does not make it go away. I hope this new year, Black families, especially Black Muslim families, start addressing these hard topics and get help before another generation is harmed.

We do what is done to us.   Be careful. Don’t let your babies out of your sight. Stand outside the door after you check the shower (other stalls), when they go to the bathroom at a relative’s house or a public bathroom.

Afrikan Healing and Wisdom@ InsightLA

Sunday Morning Group, January 28, 2022 | 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM PT Register Now
Reserve your spot now for this very special offering.

Afrikan Healing and Wisdom Presents:

Opal Palmer Adisa PhD., “Committing to the Abeng: Ancestry, Homeland, & Ritual”

(more info www.opalpalmeradisa.com)

This is for people with one or more parents or grandparents from the Black African Diaspora and who self-identifies as Black and/or mixed heritage.

This group is to welcome healing around our internalized racial oppression within our communities and to nurture the wisdom and gifts we have to share among us. Be comfortable in your skin. Bring your Medicine, your voice, your dance, your sage.

We welcome all genders, sexualities, and abilities.

Assistants: Shawna, Moka, and Kirsten. We hope you will join us.

Memorial Ceremony for Thich Nhat Hanh, Monk, Zen Master, Peace Activist, January 22-25

Memorial Services for Beloved Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh, Monk, Zen Master and Activist, Dies at 95
A monk with global influence and an ally of Martin Luther King, he championed what he called “engaged Buddhism,” applying its principles in pressing for peace (NYT).

I hadn’t known of Thich Nhat Hanh, Monk, Zen Master and Activist‘s committment to comtinuing the work of Dr. King regarding “the Beloved Community,” until today. I just always liked his energy and I also liked how accessible her was. I remember his coming to Oakland, CA on several occasions. I never got to see him– sold out, etc., but I liked it that he was in the world and that one didn’t have to have lots of money or special status to be in the room with him. His memorial service began Jan. 25 and continues through the week virtually in real time. Plum Village, France, the master’s largest sangha, is hosting the services.

I remember my first encounter with “Thay’s” work. It was in his book, “Peace in Every Step.” I think I was newly divorced and finding life really complicated; however, that book gave me strategies to take life one moment at a time and to be fully engaged so I could better appreciate what it meant to be alive.

A few years ago, I was listening to a KPFA fund drive and heard parts of the master’s “Happiness, Love, and Liberation” lectures. I immediately resonated with his talks about the ancestors and how to channel this energy and how to be present with what is past, because what is past (passed) is not past. It is just energy transformed.

The last time I listened to the master was this last week. I am on the Plum Village listserve and run to open the missives. This one was a talk on what happens to the old year when the new year arrives. It was so funny and thoughtprovoking and then the next day, Thay was gone. I was like “wow.”

The talks by teachers in this tradition are really helpful in understanding death and what happens after that. Many of our traditions speak of life everylasting. Certainly this has to do with one’s work and the embodied actors to continue to carry the message in their actions. The Beloved Community as a concept illustrated through Thich Nhat Hanh’s work guarentees how presence forever.

He will be missed. I do feel a bit of sorrow, but I know he was more than the vessel he called home, a home that was always bigger than the tangible container.

Malidoma Patrice Somé ihconstantcontactcomfs0121101454195791img723 — http://www.malidoma.com/

Elder Patrice Malidoma Somé, (Jan. 30, 1956-Dec. 9, 2021) Ase!

My introduction to Elder Malidoma Some was through his book, a classic disapora story, “Of Water and Spirit.” When I read his story, I felt validated as an African American whose ancestors whose birthrites were stolen. That he was reunited with his family of orgin and was able to survive initiation was almost magical; however, it just showed how his purpose was validated.

When the book was released, I remember going to a reading at Books Inc. in San Francisco. I don’t know if I greeted him, but the book was one I have never tired of as the enormous harm called MAAFA continues to unfold– George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Aubry just recent examples of the role racism plays in dehumanizing certain people generations later. It is a part of the fabric of this nation and by extension western culture.

His books Ritual Power and African Stories are so wonderfully written and accessible. I always felt he was sent for “them” as in white men. He seemed to stand in the doorway with the sage or efum to cleanse whiteness or deactivate the charge. Well educated in the western psychological traditions, he always seemed a little beyond my reach; however, I knew he was a brother doing healing work for our people. Sister Afua knows his work well and would share his teachings at our MAAFA ceremonies, especially at Lake Merritt in June, the Libations for African Ancestors.

I am happy he has a body of work.

I also miss his wife, Sobonfu Some, who made her transition a while back, whom I did meet and was blessed to participate in an ancestral ceremony with.

Ase to all those ancestors who served us well and may we continue to pass the wisdom forward as we wet our heads too.

From the Newsletter: Elder Malidoma completed his most recent Initiation today, Thursday, December 9th, 2021.During the past 104 days, since returning from his homeland in Dano, Burkina Faso, Elder Malidoma moved forward as the Warrior that he is as he faced many unknown territories.I have been blessed to be by his side during this time, hold witness and offer support as he journeyed forward.

While negotiating the teachings and circumstances of this intense upgrade and initiatory process- he was adamant that he would continue to meet with his students in person for as long as he was able…..and he did so.
In the midst of his traversing the multi-dimensions for healing, he also traveled to Colorado and to Asheville for many programs between his appointments and rituals.

What an inspiration he will always be…..Living his Medicine. During this past few months he deployed an attack unlike any other- against the forces of adversity -and softened into what he has called his “new dispensation”. Elder Malidoma will soon be returning to Dano, Burkina Faso where he will receive the traditional funeral rites of his tribe.

Here in the states two Ritual Weekend Gatherings will be held in honor of Elder Malidoma in the Springtime, 2022. Details about these services will be provided as they unfold. One service will be held in Asheville, NC at Ancestral Events in April and one service will be held in Cherry Plain, NY at the East Coast Village in May.

For more information about these services, please contact info@Malidoma.com At this juncture, the family does not wish to be contacted directly- although emails are welcome at the office email address and will be shared with his family.Cards for the family can be mailed to Ancestral Events, 45 Wells Valley Drive, Leicester, NC 28748
In lieu of flowers, the family is open to receiving monetary support to assist with the expenses to transport their Dad, Elder Malidoma to his Homeland ~ Mother Africa – where he will be honored as the Elder that he is- in his village.
Donations will also support his two daughters in paying the medical and other expenses that have been created during this time of their caring fortheir Dad.

Donations can be made via PayPal www.PayPal.com“friends and family” atinfo@Malidoma.com from Elder Theresa Sykes Brittany

Wanda’s Picks Radio Show Highlights and Links

Wednesday, January 5, 2022 on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show, we speak to members of the cast for Ishmael Reed’s The Slave Who Loved Caviar, up through Jan. 9 at The Theater for The New City in New York. It is also streaming live. Tickets are just $10+ small fee. For in person and virtual tickets visit https://ci.ovationtix.com/35441/production/1091241Shows are Thurday, Friday, Sat. 8 PM ET (5 PT) and Sunday at 3 PM ET (12 noon PT). Closes Jan. 9.

Guests include: Jesse Bueno, Robert Turner,Kenya Wilson, Laura Robards, Roz Fox, Brian Anthony Simmons, Monisha Shiva (about 9:30 am pst), and possibly Ishmael Reed.

2. Wadada Leo Smith (10/21/2021)

Wanda’s Picks Radio Show Interview with JAZZ: The International Connection Artists

Today, Jan. 26, 2022, on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show, we have a special recorded show featuring artists: Mai Lingani (Burkina Faso), Seth Sharp (Iceland), Johnny Turco (Puerto Rico), who are performing this Sunday, Jan. 30, 2022, 3 p.m. ET at JAZZ: the International Connection, hosted by Rome Neal’s Banana Puddin’ Jazz. https://www.romeneal.com/banana-puddin-jazz

Music: “Where Have You Been & Crazy Medley.” Acoustic by Shinuh and Johnny Turco

Ife: Submarine

Seth Sharp and the Black Clock perform “Georgia.” He speaks about this song performance when he was on a US State Dept.Tour in South Africa, Namibia.

On the Fly
Sessions at San Francisco Public Library, Main Library 100 Larkin St., SF 94102

Author: Said Shaiye in conversation, Saturday, Jan 22, 2 p.m.

Said Shaiye reads from his new book, Are You Borg Now?. After the reading, Shaiye discusses the book, with an audience Q&A to follow.

“‘You gotta find reflections of yourself however you can to survive this country,’ writes Said Shaiye in this innovative Afrofuturist memoir. Are You Borg Now cyphers with trauma through a poetics of refusal via hard and beautiful language.” – Douglas Kearney, Author of Sho

Author: Dr. Rebecca Hall, Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts , Wednesday, Jan 19, 6 p.m.

In Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, Dr. Rebecca Hall details her search to find the stories of women warriors left out of the historical record.

Candidate Forum for Alameda County District Attorney

**Wednesday, January 12, 2022 at 6 pm**, BWOPA Oakland, Berkeley, Hayward/South Alameda County Chapters are hosting the Alameda County District Attorney Forum. The DA race impacts ALL Alameda County residents. The candidates vying for this position will introduce themselves, their platform and tell us why they are the right choice to fill this seat through a series of questions.
RSVP Here: **https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUqfu6rrDwpGt3dcfWapR3mGukU2GD9imt1**

Martin Luther King Weekend Activities

“A Shattered Happiness”: The Seminole Trail of Tears and its (Continuing) Aftermath, the 184th Anniversary Seminole Maroon Remembrance of the Two 1838 Battles of the Loxahatchee River in Jupiter, Florida, an event honoring Seminole Maroons, with a special focus this year on those Maroons forcibly removed from Florida. This is A VIRTUAL event – Sunday, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Weekend, January 16, 2022, 12:00 Noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST); 9 AM PST.

The World House Documentary (Virtual & Free) Film Festival Jan. 14-17

The World House Documentary Film Festival, a free, weekend-long, virtual event celebrating the 2022 Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday.

What: Film Festival and Webinar

When: Jan 14 – Jan 17, 2022

All films are available to watch Friday, Jan 14. through Monday, Jan 17. There is a Webinar: Friday, Jan 14, 5:00PM – 7:00PM; Saturday, Jan 15 – Monday, Jan 17, 10:00 AM – 5:00PM (all PST)

**REGISTER: https://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/world-house/content/mlk-day2022**

MLK DAY EVENT: HOPE IN THE HOUR OF HOMICIDE —

In 2021, Oakland experienced a rise in violent crime more severe than those found in Chicago, Los Angeles or New York City. An infant perished in a firebombed house and a party bus filled with teenage girls was shot up leaving several wounded and two dead. In honor of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, a number of Bay Area community builders will be addressing the issue of violence in Oakland and posing solutions.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail: Dr. King’s Message for 2022 w/ Dr. David Pilgrim

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/letter-from-a-birmingham-jail-dr-kings-message-for-2022-w-david-pilgrim-tickets-241356452647

About this event

In April 1963, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was jailed for participating in nonviolent demonstrations against segregation, eight white clergymen, sympathetic to the Civil Rights cause, issued a public statement discouraging protests. They argued that change needed to take place through the courts and legal system rather than in public dissent. Dr. King’s response was the powerful “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

Join SpeakOut to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Day as we host Dr. David Pilgrim to discuss King’s discourse that challenged white moderates 57 years ago and how his message still resonates today. Dr. Pilgrim will explore the historical context of the letter and its relevance amidst the rise of white supremacist organizing and violence around the country.

Dr. David Pilgrim is best known as the founder and Director of the Jim Crow Museum, the nation’s largest, publicly accessible collection of more than 20,000 racist objects, located at Ferris State University where he serves as Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion. His books include Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justice, which explains the museum’s vision and work, and how the objects are used as tools to teach about race, race relations, and racism.

_____________________________________________________________

For inquiries about bringing Dr. David Pilgrim to your campus or community, contact info@speakoutnow.org.

For Group Sales, contact programs@speakoutnow.org

TICKETS ARE SLIDING SCALE $5 – $30 to benefit SpeakOut’s ongoing educational work.

All who register will receive a link to watch live or later at their own convenience.

ASL interpreted. English captioning will be provided.

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National Day of Racial Healing, Jan. 18, 2022

Honoring MLK Jr. @ MoAD-SF (Virtually)

12-1pm
A discussion with authors Jetta Grace Martin and Waldo Martin about their book for young adult readers called FREEDOM! THE STORY OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY

2-3:15pm
A program with MoAD Docents, who will present pairings of art from publicly accessible archives and music of the American Civil Rights Era.

3:30-4pm
An art workshop for families with materials at home.

Much more detail at this link with details for how to access via Zoom:
https://www.moadsf.org/event/free-family-day-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-national-day-of-service/?instance_id=16201

Politics@Joyce Gordon Gallery
To RSVP: HERE or secure.actblue.com/donate/victoryMLK

Ishmael Reed’s ‘The Slave Who Loved Caviar’ at Theatre for the New City (live and streaming) through Jan. 9, 2022

The-Slave-Who-Loved-Caviar-by-Ishmael-Reed-poster, Ishmael Reed’s ‘The Slave Who Loved Caviar’ at Theatre for the New City (live and streaming) through Jan. 9, 2022, Culture Currents Featured

Review by Wanda Sabir

Ishmael Reed is such a brilliant writer and thinker. Perhaps the MacArthur Genius awardee can collect dividends. His current play, directed by Carla Blank, “The Slave Who Loved Caviar,” at Theater for the New City through Jan. 9, explores Black culture and white exploitation in the relationship between the Haitian-Puerto Rican American artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat (Dec. 22, 1960-Aug. 12, 1988) and Andy Warhol (Aug. 6, 1928-Feb. 22, 1987). There are so many analogous parallels, both fictional or mythic and actual, that it is amazing the play has only one intermission.

Warhol is shown as an exploitive opportunist who masquerades as an artist, while manipulating a youngster whom he fools into believing that the older man is his father divine – when in fact Warhol is a drug pusher who captures a willing Basquiat, then installs him in a basement where the kid churns out art like an assembly worker.

The cold case is reopened by two forensic scientists, Grace and Raksha (actors Monisha Shiva and Kenya Wilson, the understudy on Jan. 1, 2022) who want to bring the perpetrators to justice. It is said Basquiat died of a heroin overdose. However, those who know, know better, as do these scientists. As the contemporary team investigates, time shifts back and forth as what happened to the Haitian artist continues with other captives. Basquiat’s drug induced imprisonment is not the first or the last.

Ishmael-Reeds-‘The-Slave-Who-Loved-Caviar-0122-forensic-experts-Laura-Robards-Monisha-Shiva-by-Jonathan-Slaff-1400x1050, Ishmael Reed’s ‘The Slave Who Loved Caviar’ at Theatre for the New City (live and streaming) through Jan. 9, 2022, Culture Currents Featured — Forensic scientists Grace and Raksha (Monisha Shiva and Kenya Wilson), doubting the popular wisdom that Basquiat died of a heroin overdose, reopen the cold case want to bring the perpetrators to justice. – Photo: Jonathan Slaff

Slave owners actually used cocaine to increase productivity among the captives, Reed shares in his work. Slavery was legal. The Warhol machine also had legal protection, money and power and what money buys when the victim is Black and male or Black and female. Basquiat is compared to Cinderella, Warhol, the dad who disappears as the sharks circle for a kill.

I love the scene in Act 2 when we meet Richard Pryor, whose ghost wants to save Basquiat …

Reed’s writing is crisp and sharp as are the actors who deliver and deliver and deliver some more. Slave is a mystery that has audience up on her feet at home rooting for the victims tied to the tracks as the iron horse approaches. Carla Blank’s direction is also on point as the diction and storylines unfold clearly in nuanced layers.

I love the scene in Act 2 when we meet Richard Pryor, whose ghost wants to save Basquiat so that he doesn’t go up in chemical flames like the elder artist did. Pryor appears as a shadow puppet danced by actor Kenya Wilson.

Pryor speaks to the art of selling out to Hollywood, New York another type of killing field for Black art and artists. Pryor tells us he was a friend of Ishmael Reed, whom we see in photos in Berkeley with the actor. We sense Pryor’s regret that he didn’t stay with people who loved him. It’s hard to tell friend from foe when engulfed in f(l)ame(s).

Ishmael-Reeds-‘The-Slave-Who-Loved-Caviar-0122-Jennifer-Blue-Kenya-Wilson-with-fang-marks-of-vampire-Baron-De-Whit-on-her-neck-by-Jonathan-Slaff-1400x1050, Ishmael Reed’s ‘The Slave Who Loved Caviar’ at Theatre for the New City (live and streaming) through Jan. 9, 2022, Culture Currents Featured — Jennifer Blue (Kenya Wilson) has the fang marks on her neck of vampire Baron De Whit. – Photo: Jonathan SlaffJennifer Blue (Kenya Wilson) has the fang marks on her neck of vampire Baron De Whit. – Photo: Jonathan Slaff

There are overt blood suckers in the play too. Actor Jesse Bueno’s “Art Agent Antonio Wolfe” and his client, actor Raul Diaz’s “Baron De Whit.” De Whit performs a superb ghoulish job. Dressed in traditional macabre cape, he uses pretty boys to satisfy his hunger while he seduces and serves Black woman appetizer. What is unclear is how Wolfe and De Whit fool folks one would think should know better – their victims are both college educated.

The predators on the loose stay loose because police precincts headed by cops who don’t value life equally cultivate and enable a persona like De Whit’s (Andy Warhol-type) tastes. This is a very real problem on and off the page.

Roz Fox’s Detective Mary van Helsing is a cool sleuth who goes looking for the missing appetizer, “Jennifer Blue” (actor Kenya Wilson), despite legal disinterest. She is our hero. Don’t worry, this is a spoiler, but there is so much going on here, you will probably forget I told you.

Ishmael-Reeds-‘The-Slave-Who-Loved-Caviar-0122-Detective-Mary-van-Helsing-Roz-Fox-rescues-Jennifer-Blue-Kenya-Wilson-one-of-Baron-De-Whits-victims-by-Jonathan-Slaff-1400x1050, Ishmael Reed’s ‘The Slave Who Loved Caviar’ at Theatre for the New City (live and streaming) through Jan. 9, 2022, Culture Currents Featured — Detective Mary van Helsing (Roz Fox) rescues Jennifer Blue (Kenya Wilson), one of Baron De Whit’s victims. – Photo: Jonathan Slaff

I also love the references to Kemetic Ausar’s (Greek Osirus) feast day and his dismemberment or fracture into so many pieces, he could not be put back together. However, if you know how his woman, the goddess, Queen Auset’s (Greek Isis) found 13 of the 14 pieces his brother Set cut him into and then scattered. She even got hold of a spell which made her able to conceive with her dead lover. This is the original immaculate conception that the Christians borrowed.

Reed mentions that if he were to add a scene, it would be a bacchanal feast – capitalists eating the flesh of Black artists, similar to how white people at antebellum picnics tore apart the remains of the Black body on the spit once roasted (see Ida B. Wells’s “A Red Record” (1895).

Yes, “Slave” opened on the birthday of the Christian savior (Heru or Horus – the love child from the union). Reed is certainly prescient as is the Theater for The New City’s Artistic Director Crystal Field. What does closing one year and opening another with “The Slave Who Loved Caviar” say about this nation? As confederate monuments are toppled throughout the nation and reparations are a very real possibility, “Slave” is precedent setting certainly. “Slave” is a challenge and a wakeup call to those who have not been paying attention to the right thing. “Slave” says, change the channel. What did the Last Poets say about the Revolution?

Well, it’s streaming through Jan. 9, 2022, at Theater for the New City. Streaming tickets are just $10 plus a small fee. For in person ($15.00) and virtual tickets, visit https://ci.ovationtix.com/35441/production/1091241.

Reed’s “Slave” closes Jan. 9, 10 days after the feast of Auset (Dec. 30). Nia or Purpose during the Kwanzaa calendar. Reed mentions in our radio or podcast interview that if he were to add a scene, it would be a bacchanal feast – capitalists eating the flesh of Black artists, similar to how white people at antebellum picnics tore apart the remains of the Black body on the spit once roasted (see Ida B. Wells’s “A Red Record” (1895).

Ishmael-Reeds-‘The-Slave-Who-Loved-Caviar-0122-Young-Blood-Brian-Anthony-Simmons-and-abstract-painter-Jack-Brooks-Robert-E.-Turner-by-Jonathan-Slaff-2-1400x1449, Ishmael Reed’s ‘The Slave Who Loved Caviar’ at Theatre for the New City (live and streaming) through Jan. 9, 2022, Culture Currents Featured — Young Blood (Brian Anthony Simmons), a brash youngster in shorts made from the Black Nationalist Flag, berates abstract painter Jack Brooks (Robert E. Turner), who initially organized a boycott of a museum that sets out to exploit them, then turns around and does a solo exhibition with the museum. – Photo: Johathan Slaff.

Reed’s research is impeccable – I lose track of some of the names, like the artist who boycotts with other Black artists a museum that sets out to exploit them. The person who plans the boycott turns around and does a solo exhibition with the museum. “Jack Brooks” (actor Robert E. Turner), an older artist who shares this story, is berated by “Young Blood,” actor Brian Anthony Simmons’s brash youngster in shorts made from the Black Nationalist Flag.

However, he is not aware of the red, black and green significance or the Hon. Marcus Garvey. Young Blood is intent on disproval of his elder’s path and upbraids him repeatedly over a history and time he was not present to evaluate. His arrogance is his downfall. There is something to be said for living to tell the story. Eyewitnesses are important, because they were there.

In “Slave” we see too often how historians are propagandists who lie to keep the empire solvent.

Ishmael-Reeds-‘The-Slave-Who-Loved-Caviar-0122-Baron-De-Whit-Raul-Diaz-his-agent-Antonio-Wolfe-Jesse-Bueno-by-Jonathan-Slaff-1400x1437, Ishmael Reed’s ‘The Slave Who Loved Caviar’ at Theatre for the New City (live and streaming) through Jan. 9, 2022, Culture Currents Featured — Baron De Whit (Raul Diaz) and his agent, Antonio Wolfe (Jesse Bueno), are the overt blood suckers in the play. De Whit performs a superbly ghoulish job. – Photo: Jonathan Slaff

Remember Orwell’s Ministry of Truth in “1984”? I am reminded also of Jimi Hendrix (1970) and his demise – yes, to a drug overdose … Fuquan Johnson (2021), Shock G (2021), Juice WRLD (2020), Billie Holiday (1959), Whitney Houston (2012), The Artist Formerly Known As Prince (2006), Michael Jackson (2009).

Touched on also are the perverse tastes of the ruling class who sanitize sexual perversions, especially involving children. Turks were raping children, as were the Warhol entourage, who, in “The Slave Who Loved Caviar,” commit equally egregious crimes. It’s just no one cares enough to stop it (then or now).

Reed hints at this in his inclusion of a disappeared Black girl/woman in the crime log of Detective Mary van Helsing (actor Roz Fox).

“The Slave” is entertaining and complex. If you like your fun intellectually challenging and witty, this is your play. What’s cool is you don’t have to travel to New York; there is a streaming option that is live. Reed has recorded and performed a live score which is also really good. The projections of art and people, Carla Blank’s choreography, Haitian veves or sacred ground drawings – all enhance the immersive quality of production.

Since it is Ishmael Reed, we can actually have a happy ending – bell hooks writes in “Outlaw Culture”: ‘Altars of Sacrifice: “Re-membering Basquiat’,” that the young, yet masterful artist “journeyed into the heart of whiteness. White territory he named as a savage and brutal place. The journey is embarked upon with no certainty of return. Nor is there any way to know what you will find or who you will be at journey’s end. … Basquiat understood that he was risking his life – that this journey was all about sacrifice” (36).

Ishmael-Reed-at-his-home-in-Oakland-040519-by-Jason-Henry-1, Ishmael Reed’s ‘The Slave Who Loved Caviar’ at Theatre for the New City (live and streaming) through Jan. 9, 2022, Culture Currents Featured — World renowned playwright Ishmael Reed is shown in a photo taken at his home in Oakland on April 5, 2019 – Photo: Jason Henry

How difficult it must have been for the artist to have his say as he dangled from a purveyor’s noose. Herein lies Black genius. Herein lies the tragedy. Ishmael Reed’s ability to cultivate success for the past 60 or so years stems from his artistic ethics and his refusal to allow the dominant culture to tell our story, the story of the 99 percent, the percentage who matter.

We had a conversation with many members of the cast Jan. 5, 2022, on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show podcast. Tune in (subscribe): http://tobtr.com/12046944. (Thanks to Mary@sfbayview.com and Kapani for the wonderful story layout.)

Winter Reading Recommendations

Winter is a time to reflect and access. What better way to do than this with a good book? I had an opportunity to speak to Chloe Dulce Louvouezo, (Wanda’s Picks Radio, Nov. 17, 2021) author, “LIFE, I SWEAR: Intimate Stories from Black Women on Identity, Healing and Self-Trust.” It is an excellent work with intuitive prompts on can apply to one’s own life and vision for wellness.

Winter is a time to reflect and access. What better way to do than this with a good book? I had an opportunity to speak to Chloe Dulce Louvouezo, (in Nov. 2021) author, “LIFE, I SWEAR: Intimate Stories from Black Women on Identity, Healing and Self-Trust.” It is an excellent work with intuitive prompts on can apply to one’s own life and vision for wellness.

I had a wonderful time at the virtual Bay Area Book Festival last year—it was one wonderful author panel or talk, after another. I was also able to have the event founder and organizer on my radio show to give highlights and tips. There were several discussions with African Disapora authors, one of my favorites, Yaa Gyasi, whose “Transcendent Kingdom,” a novel (2020), is the story of immigration and fitting in, science and addiction. Is there a way to find and isolate the gene that makes some people susceptible to than others to addiction? A story of grief and loss and when there is no container to hold the pain. It is not as esoteric as all this, but it is a journey. An African family in the deep south that worships with racists who make fitting in difficult, yet the African mother whose idea that America was better than home, to admit her error drives her mad. To everything there is a cost. Yaa Gyasi’s sophomore novel asks, was it worth it? It is a mother daughter story. It’s a sister big brother story. It is a fatherloss story. It is a Disapora story. All I can say to these characters, why stay where you do not belong? However, once one leaves home, she cannot always return. Home changes in our absence as we wander or drop anchor where were are.

In Wayétu Moore’s “The Dragons, The Giant, The Women,” a lovely memoir, we see another option. The memoir told in the voice of a five-year-old whose life changes drastically when just after her fifth birthday war starts in Liberia. The story of escape, fear. . . loss and rescue is dramatic especially through the eyes of a child who hears “drums” (bullets) in the woods without realizing the danger (32).

“Why is everyone asleep,” Wayétu asks as the family makes their escape from Monrovia.

“They are asleep,” [her father says]. “You cannot sleep right now, because we have to go see Mam.”

First there were only a few, sprinkled here and there, surrounded by dark red puddles. Then on some roads there were many. I saw and old man and woman, I saw some boys, some men, then I saw a family resting—a mother and father and four children—surrounded by a deep red color, their clothes scattered around them” (48).

A family of girls, the children save their dad who looks like one of the ethnic groups killed on sight. This feat is just one of the many magical heroic instances in the story—We see city life contrasted with the village where they are safe. The children learn their ancestral village language(Vai) as they make friends with the children. We see the power of love, the mother studying abroad for her graduate degree steps up to save her family, while Moore’s dad, has to leave the safety of the village when one of his girls gets sick. He returns safely and she gets well. However, everyone is not so lucky and sorrow visits the paternal village.

Once in the United States we see how assimilation acts like a poison in this Liberian family and attempts to turn the girls against their African mom and dad. However, this African girl’s educated Mam is not having it.

However, at the center of the tale is that of Black wom(b)en magic and how these nightmares that haunt the narrator through her childhood into adulthood until finally she is able to return home and find the rebel soldier who saves her family.

“They’re coming for us!” I belted and cried, attempting to gain footing to ease the blood from escaping my knees.

“Run. They’re coming! They’re coming for us! Run! I shouted against the resonating cackles. I turned around again and a revel’s heartless face and eyes, his cruel lips and tongue, were in my face. . . . I felt his hand grab my dress” (114).

“I was dreaming, I realized, and had somehow woken up everyone in the house with my screaming. I rubbed my eyes to see them clearly. They stood watching me. I sat up in bed and Mam and Papa finally came toward me with outstretched hands, careful as though I had been newly injured and they were afraid of breaking any more bones” (114).

A true story, the tale reads like poetry, which makes the sadness not vanish, rather settle around us— compassion stirred for the children who are captured by demons and then hypnotized. Yet, despite these small odds for rescue or hope, love does save the day here and it is because of one brave soldier girl’s act of kindness, who helps this family escape death—perhaps for her family whom she could not save.

“Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol” (1996) by Nell Irvin Painter, is a classic. In this wonderful text Painter juxtaposes Truth against fantasy and myth. It is a great book for those persons who have read Truth’s “Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Bondwoman of Olden Time” and perhaps also know, her Book of Life, which is excerpted in the Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. (1991). Hers was one of the earlier published writing by a Black woman. Truth was a generation older than Harriet Tubman and a contemporary of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, poet, novelist (“Iola Leroy”), educator and suffragist, and Harriet Jacobs, formerly enslaved author, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

“My Soul Has Grown Deep: Classics of Early African American Literature,” editor, John Edgar Wideman (2001)

In this wonderful volume, John Edgar Wideman has assembled both known and rare stories of African American excellence as told by them. It is a rare instance to hear Black people tell their own stories from such a varied perspective, yet here they are from Richard Allen, founder of the AME Church, Phyllis Wheatley to Jarena Lee, Allen’s contemporary, she also a preacher or spiritualist, to Sojourner Truth and Olaudah Equiano to Frederick Douglass, Nat Love, cowboy and frontiersman, whose story I had not known; Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson and Paul Lawrence Dunbar. The authors lovely introduction to the collection as well as his chapter summary biographical essays to these full length works, makes this investment (1270 pp.) an important document for those interested in foundational American history texts.

In Wideman’s elegant prose he writes: “The entries in this collection . . . have been chosen because they can speak for themselves, because they stimulate dialogue, because individually and as a group they address the bottom-line issue of survival, the still unresolved question of America’s identity. If we read attentively, listen to the voices preserved here, perhaps we’ll learn how each of us, consciously or not, is implicated, enmeshed in the contradictions, ironies, the precarious successes and heartbreaking, body-crushing failures of a so-called ‘democracy’ in which some are always more equal than others” (9).

Honoree Fanonne Jeffers’s “The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois (2021)

Honoree Fanonne Jeffers’s first novel, “The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois (797 pp., 2021), is a great saga. I wondered as I read this book about the trauma and sexual violence of enslavement and its aftermath then to now and how secrets harm both the one who is silent and those who need to know. Add to this cocktail colorism and see how love doesn’t protect or erase the damage racism does to the psyche of the “dark child.” Why do people “pass” or pretend to be something they are not, even when the color of power is that of the perpetrator?

We traverse several narratives in “Love Songs”, a lament to the tragedy of enslavement and this virus which once leeched into the blood and bone spreads rapidly. Despite shared linage, pillage and destruction lead the way as acquisition – land, goods and people, people as goods or tinder destroy lives generations into the future.

We meet these cursed children who walk blindly into covered traps.

There were so many times when I had to close Jeffers’s book and take a walk. Told through the lens of a contemporary incest survivor, we see how secrets can’t save and that loss is the consequence of holding one’s peace. And is it really peace when the silence itself suffers?

What we won’t do for love? We see how aberration changes and mutates, the sins of fathers and grandfathers are passed on like an inheritance, more accursed.

We learn of magic and wickedness and how families are split apart and important lessons are forgotten and the next generation has to learn them again. Damn. What a waste too!

We learn of redemption and forgiveness. Sometimes a person forgives just because they can’t stand the pain of memory. Holding onto grief and anger is a noose that won’t let the survivor go until she removes her neck from the tourniquet. Hum. For some it’s a lesson learned too late.

I tried skipping ahead and then realized that it wasn’t possible. Jeffers’s has crafted a litany that demands an audience listen to the complete overture in the order presented. So I stayed up late, took breaks and ended up getting through the book in just a few days.

Well-researched one thing to note is the internecine connections in one family between the indigenous people of the land, Africans enslaved and free and Mexican from late 18^th century to the present. These characters are southern born. It is a landscape most have left; however, these Black people choose to stay. It is their homeland.

There are three girls, dad a physician, mom a high school teacher, great uncle a historian at a historic Black college, founded by Black women. The youngest daughter Ailey tells the story when we land in her epoch. The novel traverses the generations until finally we end up in the same universe. Don’t hold your breath, it takes about 500 or so pages to get there. However, the story is not hard to follow, just follow.

DuBois, a flawed DuBois, a humanized DuBois, joins us on the excursion, each chapter opens with a song or his commentary. The book does not literally sing to us unless we reflect on “Souls of Black Folk,” the loss, the tragedy that is life for Black America. This tragedy is not only out there, it lies behind closed doors in the unexamined life—the lives of a middle class Black family that has not examined its secrets which leak into the ground water and contaminate the little ones, the innocent children who grow up to be dysfunctional adults.

A family legacy is a lot to carry when one has not looked into the luggage before she picks it up. Ailey picks the suitcase up and puts it down and picks it up again. She loves her sisters, especially her big sister, Lydia Claire Garfield (1966).

“Love Songs” is how between Ailey Pearl Garfield (1973) and her Great Uncle Jason Thomas “Root” Freeman (1907), the two are able to unpack the suitcase so that no one else has to be harmed. It is a great unraveling. The story also shares how the dead are not really gone, that we really are our ancestors.

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Ramadan Mubarak! Blessed Month of Ramadan! Happy International Jazz Heritage Month. Happy International Poetry Month.African American Museum and Library@ Oakland, Program