We Remember the Ancestors
As everyone knows by now, our esteemed elder, Brother Tahuti made his transition mid-June. There is a Memorial Service for him this Saturday, August 1, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Wo’se House of Amen Ra, 8924 Holly Street, Oakland, (510) 632-8230.
There will be another memorial for Brother Tahuti on Sat., August 22, 1-5 p.m. at Lil Bobby Hutton Park (DeFremery), 18th and Adeline Streets in West Oakland.
Marcus Garvey’s Birthday Celebration in Oakland
The Third Annual Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey B’Earthday and Community Celebration is Saturday, August 15, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Gather at “Abundant Knowledge” mural at Marcus Books, 3900 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, in Oakland (just two blocks from the MacArthur BART). Please bring your immense wisdom, families, original books by Garvey, red-black-green items and drums. And, don’t forget to bring some funds . . . as each participant will receive a ten percent discount on every item purchased that afternoon.
UNIA-ACL 2015 Convention
The National UNIA Convention is in Chicago this year, August 19-23. Visit http://www.cbpm.org/chicagodivision401.html
Red Beans, Rice, Honey Buttermilk Cornbread & Conversations about Race
The Flight Deck: July 30 – August 2, 2015
Readings & Performances:
July 31 & August 1
An evening with Wilson: An exploration of the last century of American history through the lens of North American Africans as captured in the performance of monologues from The American Century Cycle followed by a discussion moderated by the Director of The Lower Bottom Playaz. For information about the series visit lowerbottomplayaz.com or (510) 332-1319. The Flight Deck is located at 1540 Broadway, Downtown Oakland, (510) 858-7383 or visit theflightdeck.org/
July 30th & August 2
Beyond Bars: Growing Home: A staged reading of a choreopoem in 3 movements about incarceration, home & belonging.
Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD, by people affected by incarceration. The work will be read by people whose lives have been impacted by incarceration. Followed by a moderated discussion between performers, reentry guest, writer and audience.
August 2
A preview of Kudzu, a new work about gentrification, technology, development, and displacement followed by a conversation with the playwright, performers, and audience members.
Drumming in the Garden
Afro-Solo celebrates Drummers this August 1 at Yerba Buena Gardens, 1 p.m., Mission between Third and Fourth Streets. The event is free. For more information visit: AfroSolo.org or call (415) 771-2376.
August 4, National Night Out
Join Ella Baker Center for National Night Out for Safety and Liberation at Lake Merritt Boulevard Amphitheater, 5-8 p.m. Join the conversation on Twitter: #SafetyIs (what? Fill in the blanks). #SafetyIs is self determination and access to basic needs. . . . Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/1144013548958470/
Teens Doing Adult Time in CA, film
On August 3rd at 9 p.m. don’t miss “Toe Tag Parole: To Live and Die on Yard A” on HBO. It The film looks at three men who were sentenced to Life without the Possibility of Parole (LWOP) when they were 14, 16, and 17 at California State Prison, Los Angeles County, a maximum-security facility in the Mojave Desert. Ken Hartman who is in the film, spent 36 years inside for beating a man to death.
Although a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found mandatory sentencing of juveniles to Life Without the Possibility of Parole unconstitutional, those previously convicted still have to serve their sentences in some states. Alan and Susan Raymond direct a film which allow these men to tell their stories. One of the men is Ken Hartman, who has been in prison for 36 years, convicted at 19. He says, “There’s a progression that these things go through. People used to be stoned to death and then they were shot and then they were hung, they were electrocuted. Each step along the way always the argument is made that this is a better kind of death penalty. I’m sentenced to Life Without the Possibility of Parole. It’s not better than the death sentence, because it is the death sentence.'”
“As the men of The Honor Yard say, ‘They will get out when they get their Toe Tag Parole,’ meaning death by incarceration.”
Happy Birthday Avotcja!
Celebration Avotcja’s 74th birthday at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, Sunday, August 9, 2015 at 7:00 PM.
I have been traveling . . .
This summer I was able to attend two Maafa Commemorations, one in Washington DC, the other in New Orleans. Here are a few reflections on NOLA as we head into the tenth anniversary of the Great Flood, August 29.
The 15th Annual New Orleans Maafa Commemoration, hosted by Aché Cultural Center, was marvelous! It was huge and from the program at Congo Square to the march to the river where we visited Crime Scenes (historic sited with monuments which need to be take down), the momentum just grew. The elders and disabled were in vehicles, police blocked traffic, people saluted the ancestors from their windows and balconies, tooted their horns and pulled out cameras to document the ancestral commemoration procession.
Due to the jelly format and being more than a treatment, it has has become a fantasy providing solution for men of every age though the medicine is made cialis without prescriptions uk available strictly for men above 18 years of age. December 19, 2015: Sonia and Rahul Gandhi to viagra 100mg sales appear in court and pleaded not guilty. Researchers found heart rate & blood pressure while ordinary treadmill works out levitra 60 mg deeprootsmag.org tests & through usual sexual act with a recognizable mate at home. This procedure is offered in levitra 25mg almost at all health institutions in the world. At Congo Square the ceremony began at 7 AM. When I arrived about 6:45 the space was filling. We listened to live kora music performed by Morikeba Kouyate, Kora Konnection. It was ethereal and fit the wonder such rituals invoke. Sage and other herbs burned as the space was cleansed and the energy cleared. A simple, yet huge shrine was erected – chairs faced the shrine and mic stands.
Freddi W. Evans, author of a book about the history of Congo Square, opened the ceremony. Shkt. Hrimgalah, Ausar Auset Society, SW Region followed with libations and prayers; Fr. Maurice Nutt, Xavier University Office of Black Catholic Studies, spoke about black heritage.
There were special guests like President Obama’s Washington Fellowship or Young African Leaders, who are studying at Xavier University this summer and a wonderful young women step group who performed. The latter group of Pan African youth spoke and taught us a greeting in their native tongue. The young woman from Nigeria, knelt and touch the ground. Many, if not all, said this ceremony, especially the white attire, reminded them of home.
A high point was when the Nubian Messengers Collective from Brooklyn performed, but the energy rose again when Zion Trinity and Kamau Phillips blessed the space with another libation, many folks from the wings danced into the center of the gathering and raised the spirits in a collective Ashay!
Quess, a poet with Black Youth Project, told a wonderful story about his grandmother and later at Gen. Lee’s statue raised the energy at the Confederate flag burning (smile).
Brother Luther Gray and Wood hosted. Sister Carole Bebelle, co-founder and director, Aché Cultural Arts Center, gave a short talk about love, with an admonishment to be about the work of healing our communities, that love is action. I was seated next to her and two elders, the elder behind me was ninety-one. The age range was great— babes in arms to ninety one— Awesome! There were lots of youth too who were active participants. I loved the libations and poetry and music all mixed up together.
There was even a place in the program for the Coalition for the Commemoration of African Ancestors of the Middle Passage (ICCAAMP) to speak. Brother Theodore Lush, Montgomery, AL, and I were present. I spoke and gave everyone the website address –RemembertheAncestors.com Several people came up to me afterward from California and elsewhere to find out more. This was really exciting (smile).
After Chief Warhorse, Choctaw Nation gave a rousing talk, there was a release of Serenity Peace Doves led by Chief Clarence Delcour, Creole Osceolas and Big Queen Cherise Harrison Nelson, Guardians of the Flame, followed by a Spiritual blessings with Heal-hers.
After the final prayer, we lined up and processioned out of the gate into the streets on a march to the River which took us through the French Quarters and a lot of African history. NOLA is certainly a great place to tangibly remember the ancestors. African heritage is everywhere.
People received white carnations for the River Ceremony. They didn’t have enough flowers which must mean the ceremony is growing larger.
On the front line there were youth carrying a banner followed by dancers: FiYiYi and N’Fungola Sibo West African Dance Troupe –they were pretty awesome (smile). The drummers and other musicians filled in right after them and then the rest of us filled in the body. Some women carried umbrella made from white lace, still others wore hats. . . . It was pretty hot. The elders and those who needed a lift rode in cars and vans or cycled transport.
One of the dancers waved the Pan African red, black and green, flag. When stopped at a Crime Scene, like that of businesses which traded in black flesh or at the statue of the man responsible for importing more black Africans into this country via Brazil, than any other – locs flying with the flag, the dancer would take the space back with his presence and the flag. He was awesome (smile). Marcus Garvey would certainly have approved, along with Ida B. Wells Barnett, Rosa Parks, General Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Dubois and others (smile). This was a part of the procession I had not expected which I enjoyed the most.
Brother Luther Gray said the history talks were 2015 addition. Locating the Maafa in the cement, granite and asphalt, then situating the story in the symbolic bones of the perpetrators and resisters made the walk in the heat so meaningful. I had to wipe tears and perspiration from my eyes multiple times. Grounding the Commemoration in the physicality of the places made it real in a tangible way for me. I want to walk the route again and see and hear more. Real estate certainly makes the intangible real. One cannot deny the chains, the whips, the bricks forged by black hands, and the continued criminal acts of violence on black souls. Towards the end of the walk, one guide broke down as she shared the story of the slave market just in front of us. These businesses are still open and generating money. We are talking living, unresolved historic trauma that tourists and residents walk buy, sit in to eat without a pause, a libation or a thought about the atrocity.
I knew we would pass landmarks such as the Tomb of the Unknown Slave at the historic Catholic Church, St. Augustine, where Michaela Harrison sang a beautiful song, while a Mardi Gras Indian Chief stood behind the chains on the altar where red palm oil had been poured. Interpreters shared the history of the places we stopped to pay our respects. Among the places we visited were Café Maspero, Slave Exchanges and municipal buildings. Hidden History, LLC led this aspect of the walk. These are our ancestors, this is our story.
Café Maspero was the site of a protest led by Brother Luther after the French Restaurant refused to remove chains and whips from its walls. Can you imagine walking into this restaurant and seeing black people eating there under shackles? The restaurant refused the request, however, after the protest began with picket signs, the artifacts came down.
The procession would stop just to celebrate life and blackness on the warm, humid, hot New Orleans Saturday. Drummers played at these injunctions while several people danced on the streets and in the audiences we attracted. We also picked up mourners and celebrants—we mourned the loss and celebrated our victory— despite the difficulty, we are still here.
After the River Ceremony where there were more tears, poems about black lives cut short through violence and how that shows up in our bodies— Oracles poem, “She Has a Migraine,” and another poet, Denise Lyles-Cook, shared a poem about Mama Harriett Tubman. Once again, the moment was full as these women called on our ancestors, giants like Mama Tubman.
There is a beautiful work of art created by a black artist shaped like a house that sits at the River just behind me.
The ceremony closed with the Black National Anthem, Lift Every Voice, then people who had flowers went to the river for a quiet meditation. Watermelon and ice cooled us off a bit afterward. There was even a bit of shade under a few trees. I am so happy there was a bus shuttle back to Congo Square. I didn’t know how to walk back (smile) and my phone battery was too low to use the GPS. Sakura Kone, a friend from the Bay who now lives in NOLA invited Theodore and me over to his house to freshen up and to a play later on, Lenwood O. Sloan’s “Vo-Du MacBeth: A Play about Power in Two Acts,” which was also a benefit for Aché Cultural Center. The play, set in New Orleans just before the Civil War, was outstanding and featured the musical arrangements of Bill Summers, a NOLA legendary percussionist.
I think we must have looked like were were melting (smile). Theodore had been on the Megabus all night traveling to NOLA from Montgomery. His bus ran late and he missed the first couple of hours, but he arrived before the procession to the River and I got a chance to meet him and others from Alabama (smile). Montgomery’s Maafa Commemoration was the following Sunday, July 12. There were folks from Selma there as well who spoke earlier at Armstrong Park.
After the procession we met at the Robert E. Lee Circle where a Confederate Flag was burned to symbolize the continued annihilation of black personhood. At Huck Finn Restaurant, May 21, 2015, Cyrille Neville’s daughter, Liryca Neville and her co-workers’ receipt was returned with a racial epitaph written on. Imagine what such does to the digestion and why should black people have to swallow such insults? See http://theadvocate.com/news/12439396-123/an-african-american-lunch-customer-gets
The July 4 weekend is certainly for the African Ancestors of the Middle Passage. That Essence is also happening means people who might not normally be in NOLA are also present. It is too bad that the Essence Festival no longer represents the interests of black NOLA. Less than ten percent of the profits earned touch NOLA’s black community before leaving, more than one person told me. This is not Black Power Economics. My friend, Malik Rahim told me when we parted after I saw the mural of Albert Woodfox. Malik said he walks through the Super Dome and says a prayer for all the black people who died from government apathy and neglect August 29, 2005, and thereafter.
I also thought about the graves the building sits on. It was built on an African Burial Ground. There were news articles in the local black paper about Aché ‘s Maafa Commemoration, and at the Basin Train Station Museum/Theatre, Aché is a part of the museum permanent exhibits. This is where we attended the play Saturday night. Sister Carol Bebelle and Brother Luther Gray have really made black heritage, especially ancestor reverence and art for social change integral to the fabric that is black NOLA. Aché is a keeper of the flame.
That Sunday Robert King, Malik, his wife and I attended the memorial service for Glenn Ford, Oct. 22, 1949-June 29, 2015. The brother spent 30 years behind bars for a crime he was exonerated of, only to die less than a year after his release. It was a beautiful ceremony, but the state of Louisiana robbed this man of his life.
That Monday I went to Albert Woodfox’s bail hearing in St. Francisville, the county Angola State Prison is in. The court house was two hours from where I was staying with my cousin in Slidell. Albert Woodfox looked well, under the circumstances. I think I must have been the only person who thought his petition would be granted. The next hearing is to hear the court’s decision on the state’s appeal of the third federal ruling in favor of Woodfox’s release. If the appeal is upheld, the plan is to set a retrial date in the state court. The attorney’s will request change of venue. For those who are interested in keeping up with the case, visit http://angola3.org/blog/
The Federal Road to Freedom
After a summer of back and forth briefing on paper, the first week in September (now known to be Sept 3rd) a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans will hear oral arguments on whether Federal Judge James Brady’s June 8th “unconditional writ” officially overturning Albert’s conviction, ordering his release, and barring a retrial (a ruling he presented as “the only just remedy”) will stand. A decision from that Court is expected sometime later this fall.
If Judge Brady’s ruling is upheld, Woodfox will be released and a retrial banned. If reversed, the Fifth Circuit does not have the power to reinstate his overturned conviction, but can put limits on the terms of Judge Brady’s Writ and release order.
A Third Chance for Justice In State Court
Meanwhile, as this federal appeals process plays out in the Fifth Circuit, a third attempt to prosecute Albert is already, simultaneously, underway. Months before Judge Brady issued his final ruling, Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell began the process of preparing to retry Albert a third time.
Both sides will be filing multiple early motions on paper throughout the summer. Then they will meet again in St. Francisville in front of state court Judge William Carmichael of Louisiana’s 20th Judicial District on September 21st and 22nd. During these two days the evidentiary ground rules, a timetable, and likely a tentative trial date will be set.