African Voices Spring/Summer 2015 by African Voices Magazine

S pring /S ummer 2015

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A Soulful Collection

Art

and

Literature

PEN AMERICAN CENTER presents the 11th ANNUAL

PEN WORLD VOICES FESTIVAL of INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE

ON AFRICA

4 - 10 May 2015 New York City WITH

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE TEJU COLE EDWIDGE DANTICAT MONA ELTAHAWY RICHARD FLANAGAN AMINATTA FORNA YAHYA HASSAN YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA RACHEL KUSHNER ALAIN MABANCKOU ACHILLE MBEMBE

WA N G E CH I M U T U, RO OT OF A L L EV E S, 20 1 0

MICHAEL ONDAATJE TRACY K. SMITH TOM STOPPARD NGŨGĨ WA THIONG’O BINYAVANGA WAINAINA AND MANY MORE...

VOLUME NO. 13, ISSUE 30

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

270 W. 96th STREET, NYC 10025 Phone: 212-865-2982 Fax: 212-316-3335 www.africanvoices.com PUBLISHER/EDITOR Carolyn A. Butts BOARD CHAIRPERSON Jeannette Curtis-Rideau MANAGING EDITOR Maitefa Angaza POETRY EDITOR Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie SENIOR WRITER Sandrine Dupiton ART DIRECTOR Derick Cross ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR AZIZA LAYOUT & DESIGN Graphic Dimensions Lorraine Rouse ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS Sonia Sanchez Poet/Activist Marie Brown Literary Agent Voza Rivers Harlem Arts Alliance, Founder Danny Simmons Visual Artist/Philanthropist, Rush Philanthropic Arts Fdn. © 2015, African Voices is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization. Donations are tax-deductible. ISSN 1530-0668 African Voices is supported with funds from the West Harlem Development Corp., NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and the NY State Council on the Arts.

Publisher’s Note “The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through vast forests, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place,” — James Baldwin.

We’re grateful to all the artists who responded to a call we made for protest art. We received an overwhelming response and choosing the work for this issue was difficult. The front cover is a tribute by artist Malik Seneferu to Lil Bobby Hutton, the first member and treasurer of the Black Panther Party. He was also tragically shot and killed by the Oakland Police on April 6, 1968. Our Spring 2015 is dedicated to Lil Bobby and all the young men of color who continue to die in an ongoing war to destroy brown lives. Writers and artists have a long tradition in challenging unjust laws and speaking out against abuses that diminish us as human beings. Everything from police brutality to environmental terrorism that has robbed our oceans and lands of vitality are addressed in our poems, images and performing arts. Our issue celebrates artists who use their work to raise consciousness and push our world towards a deeper alignment with the Universe. From Selma to the Black Lives Matter movement, artists are on the forefront, exposing painful truths that must be told. In this issue, African Voices publishes an exclusive memoir excerpt by Velma and Norman Hill, a couple whose trailblazing activism ignited a movement to integrate public beaches. An inspiring story of love and struggle, Velma and Norman met while fighting institutionalized racism and were intimately involved in the labor and civil rights movements. Their faith and personal sacrifices serve as a guiding light for the work we must continue. Society may not be ready to work out differences or enforce laws to protect our lives, food and planet but it doesn’t mean we will stop beating the drum. We will not live in silence and patiently wait for change that rarely ever comes without hard work, small battles lost and won, scars and tears shed. Artists will keep pushing until the healing begins and changes are made so we can fulfill our purpose and live abundant lives. As writer James Baldwin eloquently reminds us, “Artists are here to disturb the peace...Yes, they have to disturb the peace. Otherwise, chaos.”

Front Cover: M alik Seneferu, Lil Bobby Hutton Back Cover: Abba Yahudah, Still Crying

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African Voices is the recipient of the West Harlem Development Corp.’s capacity-building grant, which will help us service artists and young people living in Harlem’s District 9 through programs like Get Your Read On!

African Voices Communications, Inc., a non-profit organization, sponsors arts programs like Get Your Read On!, a literacy project that provides storytelling and writing workshops to young people; Reel Sisters Film Festival, which presents films directed, produced or written by women of color; and AV Workshop & Performance Series devoted to providing creative writing workshops, book-signings, literary readings and opporutnities for artists in publishing. Yes, I want to join the African Voices Family! Please enroll me as a member at the selected level: ___ $40 Individual ___$60 Single Supporting ___$150 Dual Supporting ___$350 Fellow ___$500 Supporting ___$1,500 Sustaining ___$5,000 Angel ___$10,000+ Benefactor

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Contents FICTION 20

Chained by Kleaver Cruz

Migration by Toya Wolfe

POETRY 16

Grounded by Ama Codjoe

Fade to Black by Roger Bonair-Agard

Round Midnight by Will Halsey

Shades of Green by Bethany Artress White

Oceanic by Bonafide Rojas

The Usual Suspects by Askia Touré

39 Grief etches its silver into our days, singing by Lauren K. Alleyne

The Academy by Keisha-Gaye Anderson

Boom by Timothy Prolific Veit Jones

8 Haiku for Amiri Baraka by Lenard D. Moore

Reading the Leaves by Ama Codjoe

Lula Had A Gun by Charan P. Morris

Black Diamond by C. Liegh McInnis

IN THIS ISSUE 10

Contributors

Art/Photo Essay 24

She Cried by Marcellous Lovelace

Freedom is Not Free by Tyson Hall

Stand Our Ground by Ansel Butler

Intelligent Black Girl by Marcellous Lovelace

Am I Next by Jalani Morgan, Toronto

26 Untitled by Jalani Morgan

28 Prelude A (Civil Right Leader’s) Funeral by Ansel Butler 28

Soothing the Pain by Jimbe’ Carroll

Parental Advisory by Demar Douglas

29 Untitled by Lisa DuBois 30

Blak Man Reflections by Idris Hassan

Black Lives Matter by Ocean Morisset

African Voices “Of Purpose and Consequence”

BOOKS and THEATER 50

Read into it... Editor’s Picks

FEATURES 6 Climbing Up The Rough Side of the Mountain by Velma and Norman Hill 14 Dwana Smallwood’s Dance Baby Crowns in Bed-Stuy by Maitefa Angaza

32 Toshi Reagon on Making Parable of the Sower Sing by Maitefa Angaza

GALLERY 40

Jamel Shabazz Captures Life’s Songs

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M E M O I R

Climbing Up the Rough Side of the Mountain

E X C E R P T

by Velma and Norman Hill On August 28th, 1960, Velma Murphy, then the 21-yearold president of Chicago’s South Side NAACP Youth Council, led — with the aid of her activist boyfriend, Norman Hill, 27 — a small group of young people in the first “wade-in” protest at Rainbow Beach. This Chicago beach along Lake Michigan was, like most of the city’s public beaches, racially segregated by practice, but not by law. Velma and Norman Hill, married for 55 years and living in the Chelsea section of New York City, have completed their memoir about their lives in the civil rights and organized labor movements. Here is an excerpt from their upcoming book, “Climbing Up the Rough Side of the Mountain: Our Lifelong Struggle to Further Democracy in America.”

Rainbow Beach We invited Norman Hill, that guy I met on the Woolworth picket line just weeks earlier and one of the coordinators of the March on Conventions Movement, to address our gathering. It was a sweltering 95 degrees outside that evening and the inadequate air-conditioning in a cramped room in our neighborhood community center made our meeting of 50 people feel twice as large in half the space. We were all dressed casually in shorts, T-shirts and sandals. The meeting had already started when Mr. Hill walked into the room. I had only talked to him briefly when he was leading the picket line, so, to me, he was still Mr. Hill. But this time, in this setting of mostly young people, he seemed shy and a little awkward. I immediately began feeling closer to him, feeling that he was someone with whom I could be on a first-name basis. I remember thinking how very uncomfortable he must be in that heavy suit. Nevertheless, he was striking. He was at least five years older than most of us in the group, yet his sensitive, coffee-colored face and gentle brown eyes seemed to close the difference between him and us. He caught and 6

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held everyone’s attention — especially the women in that smoldering meeting room. Norman was a wonderful speaker. But back then, though, I noticed a pronounced New York or Northeastern accent. I wasn’t alone. My best friend, Bobbie, who sat beside me, leaned over and whispered in my ear, “What is he saying?” “Where did he come from?” “I don’t understand a word he’s saying.” I said, “Shhh, I think he’s cute… I want to hear this.” After a while, I completely forgot his accent. A new revolution began in the United States when young Negro students, some no older than most of you, went into an all-white restaurant in Greensboro, North Carolina demanding to be served. That sit-in helped to ignite the flames that sparked demonstrations all over this country. I was sent here by a civil rights leader whose name is A. Philip Randolph. Mr. Randolph has called for a march on both political parties to let them know

that their platforms must reflect a firm commitment to racial equality and the needs of all. We want you to be a part of this movement for change. As Norman spoke, I knew that I really wanted to be a part of this movement for change. I wanted to hear more about A. Philip Randolph. I wanted to know more about the civil rights struggles. Most of all, I wanted to know more about this Norman Hill. His words reminded me that social activism was always a part of my life. Demonstrating for change was natural to me. As a very young kid, I walked picket lines with my mother when her union was on strike. I remembered the songs, the signs, the solidarity, the overwhelming feeling that everyone was united and marching for something important. I saw a future in Norman’s smile, and my college suddenly seemed very far away. After the demonstration at the Republican Convention, the NAACP Youth Council discussions turned to staging a “wade-in demonstration” to desegregate Rainbow Beach. It was a popular stretch of sandy beach along Lake Michigan from 75th Street to 79th Street, part of a string of similar parks and recreation areas managed by the Chicago Park District. Me and Norman knew that Chicago, one of the most residentially segregated cities in America, has a long, tragic history of racial tension and turf wars. On a Sunday, July 27, 1919, Eugene Williams, a 17-year-old Black youth, was swimming alone along the shore of Lake Michigan near the 29th Street Beach. Chicagoans knew that the 27th Street Beach was for Blacks, but not the beach two blocks to the south. When Eugene drifted across some invisible boundary that separated the white-only waters of the lake from the Black waters, some white beach bathers took the unwritten law in their hands. They began throwing rocks at the Black teenager until he drowned. As late as July 30, 1960, on a Chicago beach, a Black police officer named Harold Carr and his wife and children were harassed by rocks and racist jeers hurled by a gang of White youth, according to an article published in the Chicago Daily Defender. It reported that Carr spotted a white police sergeant nearby, but the officer did not come to his family’s aid. Frustrated, Carr ran to his automobile and got his service revolver. But Carr and his family were forced to leave. The place was Rainbow Beach. When Velma told me about plans for a wade-in to integrate the beaches, starting with Rainbow Beach, it sounded like a very good idea. I believed in direct action. Five years earlier, I followed the Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama with great interest. I realized that Velma and her Youth Council were taking their cues from young people in the

South staging sit-ins to push for integration of public places. But Velma’s leadership had its detractors, especially among the adults in the NAACP in Chicago. Velma brought me in as a kind of unofficial consultant, an advisor for the planned wade-in. It was to be staged before the city closed the beaches for the winter on Labor Day. During the meeting there were two major concerns: Would we defy the NAACP adult leadership who had discouraged all direct action? And would whites be permitted to join our wade-in. I, with Norman’s support, pushed to have whites included. That troubled some of our members. Youth Council members not only worked together, but socialized, danced and played records together. Some of the members complained that whites wouldn’t understand us. “They don’t know anything about our music and dances,” one objector said. “We don’t want to change the way we do things for them,” said another. But me and Norman felt very strongly about presenting an integrated group to desegregate Rainbow Beach. It just made sense. Howard Irving, an executive board member, spoke up. “We don’t want whites going with us,” he told the gathering. “We want to do it by ourselves! They will start coming to our meetings and our parties and we’ll have to change the way we act. They don’t understand our culture. We just want the right to use that beach like anybody else.” We had talked about carrying out the wade-in for a long time. The NAACP adults just did not want it because they were more for making change through the legal system, the courts. They were not for direct action. And they had also been compromised by the political machine of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. The last thing they wanted is for us to do something that could potentially embarrass Daley. So when these guys said, “Velma, I think there are other ways to do this,” we said — the audacity of youth speaking up — “we don’t know any other way.” We also voted to let a group of liberal white youth from Hyde Park that Norman brought in join us for Chicago’s first wade-in. The demonstration took place on the morning of August 28th. It was one of those hot, hot — Oh, Lord — Chicago days. Going outside felt like walking into a blast furnace. You could see the heat rising off the sidewalks, giving even the most brazen of bare-footed-bathers second thoughts. I put on my shorts and a white blouse over my bathing suit. I had to use a towel to wipe off the perspiration streaming down my face. It was not just the temperature. It was the african Voices

anticipation of danger. Looking back on it, I was scared. I know you aren’t supposed to say you were scared about something like this, but I was.

children had left and the beach was almost deserted. I signaled the group that we should begin to leave. It was only 2 p.m. and Rainbow Beach was strangely still.

Thirty people — one third white and two thirds Black — showed up for the wade-in with their swimsuits, blankets, towels, and chess and checker sets. We met in the park at the edge of the beach as a staging area, and we could feel that just about everyone was tense with the anticipation of danger and uncertainty about what would happen that day. At times like these, you sort of know that what you’re doing could get you hurt — maybe. But then you think – and I didn’t know if Norman was thinking the same thing that I was – Nobody’s going to hurt us. They’re not going to do it.

Then we heard it. It sounded like a drum banging. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Norman’s smile was comforting, no, even better... it was reassuring. Still, I was struggling to not broadcast my worry. I said to myself, be cool. Be confident, and definitely, do not throw up! I had to set a good example for the others. As we walked on the beach, Norman and I noticed that it was crowded… And everyone was white. People were playing volleyball, kids were running into the lake’s edge, families were sitting on blankets and enjoying the afternoon. A group of men were sitting on a high sea wall near the water. Everyone turned to look at us as we slowly walked toward Lake Michigan. As we approached the water, it seemed that all talking stopped and everyone on the beach was staring at our group. I heard someone yell out, “You’re on the wrong beach, niggers.” I felt the nasty word slap me across the face. We all tried to ignore the hurtful stares and comments, found a place near the water, put down our blankets and started to play checkers, chess, and cards. Some took out books and began to read, uneasily. There weren’t any protest signs. I guess our bodies — Black and white — on that whites-only beach was evidence enough of protest. Some of us took off our shoes; some peeled off their street clothes and started to swim. I glanced at Norman and didn’t go too far into the lake. I just went in and splashed around because I thought I really had to be there and watch everybody. I watched Velma. The one thing we both noticed was that there were no police. Anywhere. I told Norman that there were usually police around. There were lifeguards, but no police at the time. We sent one of the white demonstrators to call the police and tell them what we were doing with hopes that they would come. He trotted back to the beach, flashing a thumbs-up sign. After about an hour, things got quiet and the beach thinned out. No one was playing volleyball, the women and 8

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At first the beat was slow and primitive, then it seemed louder and faster. Everyone heard it and you could see the fear flow down over us like a balmy fog. Norman and I didn’t run. No one did. But we did pick up our gait. We started singing one of the anthems of the movement, “We Shall Overcome.” We could see all these guys sitting on that seawall where the sound of that damn drum was coming from. Its beat was coming faster now and all of these white men, some young, but a lot of them older than Norman and my big brother Wallace, who was with us, started jumping down from the wall and coming to surround us. There must have been at least a couple a hundred. I’ll never forget the face of one of them. He had icy blue eyes that didn’t convey even a spark of humanity, like an animal’s eyes. His face was pinched and badly pockmarked, his skin was chalky, drained of color. Dead. I can see it to this day. I stayed close to Velma, who was leading the group. I was trying to protect her when the rocks came raining down on us and the mob began to close in on us. I looked to Norman and could see the phalanx of men carrying chains and rocks and bricks. The chalky man appeared to be a leader. We were surrounded by hatred on three sides; our backs were to the water. The only way out was to walk past this angry mob that was shouting profanities at us. I heard Bill Hart from the Hyde Park contingent whisper, “Let’s get the hell out of here.” We were singing loudly now, and rocks were whizzing by us, falling hard into the sand with a thud. Someone got struck on his shoulder. Then, I felt myself falling. A sharp pain tore into the back of my head and blood warmly soaked my white blouse. A rock had found its mark. My brother Wallace went nuts at the sight of me bloodied and knocked senseless for wanting no more than what should have already been ours. I grabbed Velma and picked her up. I felt that I had to do so quickly, and in the most expeditious way to get her off that beach. I don’t remember being angry, just concerned about getting her out of harm’s way and to safety. I heard her say one thing in the midst of all of the chaos that day. “Where’s Norman?” I told Velma that I was right there as we all headed to a simple structure where people changed their clothes at the edge of the beach and nearby park land. It was several yards away. We locked the door but we could hear the mob

Velma and Norman Hill helped launch a national campaign to integrate public beaches on Aug. 28, 1960. Police move in to break up clashes between protesters and segregationists at St. Augustine Beach Fla. on June 25, 1964. (AP Photo).

pounding, trying to get in. Suddenly we heard police sirens and then nothing. Someone outside yelled, “Open the door. This is the police. Is anybody hurt?” I was bleeding badly. The police must have seen the blood on the ground leading to the door. An ambulance came. I think I passed out for a couple of minutes. Some of my memories around this part of it fade in and out. I do remember Norm was at my side holding my hand at the hospital. Some published accounts of that day said I just got “glanced,” but I got seventeen stitches in my head. That’s not glanced. Other demonstrators had cuts and bruises. As I came out of the treatment area into the hospital waiting room I was glad to see that everybody was there. We

agreed to come back the next week, and every week until the beach was safe — and integrated. On August 20th, 2011, the Park District of Chicago unveiled a historical marker on the spot where me and Norman — and so many others — literally stood our ground for a purpose greater than our own. We attended a wonderful commemoration of the wade-ins that day and Norman and I spoke about what those protests meant then and now. © 2015 Velma and Norman Hill, Climbing Up the Rough Side of the Mountain: Our Lifelong Struggle to Further Democracy in America.

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contributors WRITERS BIOS Roger Bonair-Agard, A two-time National Poetry Slam Champion, has appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and has authored four poetry collections: Bury My Clothes, (a National Book Award nominee), GULLY and Tarnish and Masquerade and is co-author of Burning Down the House: Selected Poems from the Nuyorican Poets Café National Poetry Slam Champions. He works with youth at Urban Word in NYC and at Volume in Ann Arbor. Co-founder of the LouderARTS Project, Roger is also writer-in-residence with Vision Into Art and Poet In Residence with Young Chicago Authors. He teaches poetry at Cook County Temporary Juvenile Detention Center in Chicago.

Lauren K. Alleyne hails from Trinidad and Tobago, has an MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University and is Poet-in-Residence and Assistant Professor of English at the University of Dubuque. A Cave Canem graduate, Lauren’s work has been awarded the Lyric Iowa Poetry Prize, Small Axe Literary Prize, two Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prizes, the Atlantic Monthly Student Poetry Prize and the Robert Chasen Graduate Poetry Prize at Cornell, among others. She has been published the Crab Orchard Review, The Cimarron Review, Black Arts Quarterly, The Caribbean Writer, The Belleview Literary Review, Growing Up Girl and Gathering Ground. Her debut collection, Difficult Fruit, is from Peepal Tree Press.

Keisha-Gaye Anderson is a Jamaica-born poet, author, and screenwriter. Her poetry book, Gathering the Waters, was released by Jamii Publishing in 2014. Her poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in national literary journals and magazines, such as Renaissance Noire, the Killens Review of Arts and Letters, and Mosaic Literary Magazine. Keisha is a past fellow of the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and the North Country Institute for Writers of Color, and was short-listed for the Small Axe Literary Competition. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from The City College, CUNY. Keisha lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and two children.

Herb Boyd, activist journalist and teacher, has authored, edited or co-edited 25 books, including the recent, The Diary of Malcolm X co-edited with Ilyasah Al-Shabazz. His Baldwin’s Harlem, was a 2009 NAACP Image Award finalist and he was a1995 American Book Award recipient (with Robert Allen) for the anthology Brotherman—The Odyssey of Black Men in America. Other work includes Pound for Pound—The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson and a young adult book on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He co-authored Simeon’s Story with Emmett Till’s cousin Simeon Wright, and, in 2014, was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame. His articles appear in the Amsterdam News, the Network Journal and the Michigan Citizen. An adjunct professor at City College of New York, he lives in Harlem with his wife, Elza.

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Ama Codjoe is an educator, writer and dance artist with roots in Memphis and Accra. She received her B.A. in English from Brown University and was a Presidential Fellow at Ohio State University where she received her M.F.A. in Dance Performance. She is a Cave Canem fellow. Her work has been published in the Tidal Basin Review and the Cave Canem Anthology XII: Poems 2008-2009 (Willow Books).

Kleaver Cruz, a NYC native and writer/literary artist, has done extensive support and advocacy work with young people and educators. President Obama recently acknowledged the “Transitions” program he co-founded at Vassar College to support firstgeneration and low-income students. One half of the poetic duo, The Delta, he has performed at The Nuyorican Poet’s Café and Bowery Poetry Club. The author of Sketches of a City, a collection of flash fiction, his work has been featured on TravelNoire.com and on Kiese Laymon’s blog, Cold Drank. Cruz values the power of words; they allow him to write what didn’t exist when he needed it most.

Bernice Green is the co-founder of Our Time Press, a heralded and uncompromising NYC community newspaper. She is CEO of Legacy Ventures, which provides public relations support and she also serves as a New Federal Theatre board member. A journalist who also writes short fiction, Green resides in Brooklyn with her family.

Will Halsey was first published in the Journal of Black Poetry. He subsequently published in diverse outlets, such as Black Dialogue, Black News, Catalyst, The City Sun newspaper and previously in African Voices. He wrote the libretto to the musical, “No Laughing Matter,” which was staged at various NYC community venues and at the world-famous Apollo Theater. He is currently at work on the librettos of a series of self-styled hip operas, including “The African Basketball Association” and “Eddy Push Wrecks.” He has worked with the performance groups Black Sounds and The Moving Form.

C. Liegh McInnis is an instructor of English at Jackson State University, the publisher and editor of Black Magnolias Literary Journal, the author of seven books, including four collections of poetry, one collection of short fiction and one work of literary criticism, and the 2012 First Runner-Up of the Amiri Baraka/ Sonia Sanchez Poetry Award sponsored by North Carolina State A&T.

contributors Lenard D. Moore, a North Carolina native, is the Founder and Executive Director of the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective and co-founder of the Washington Street Writers Group. Moore’s poems, short stories, essays and reviews have appeared in over 400 publications, such as Agni, Callaloo, African American Review, Obsidian: Literature in the African Diaspora and the Colorado Review. His work is in over 100 anthologies, including The Bedford Introduction to Literature and The Haiku Anthology. He is recipient of the Haiku Museum of Tokyo Award (1983, 1994 and 2003).

Charan P. Morris is a poet/educator born and raised in Chicago, now based in New York. Her work has appeared in NYU’s Gallatin Review, Sinister Wisdom, Kweli Journal, The Mom Egg, the Stand Our Ground Anthology (2013) and The Liberator Magazine. She is a 2011-12 LAMBDA Literary Foundation Fellow and recipient of the Archie D. and Bertha H. Walker Scholarship for the Fine Arts Work Center 2013 Summer Program. In addition to being a ten-year NYC public school educator, Charan has facilitated poetry workshops with diverse groups of writers including formerly incarcerated youth and graduate students at Columbia University.

bonafide rojas has three collections of poetry: renovation, when the city sleeps and pelo bueno: a day in the life of a nuyorican poet). he lives in the Bronx and started grand concourse press to publish books whenever he felt he should. you can find him riding the train, playing or listening to music. he loves music so much he created a band called the mona passage that is currently recording their first album. he’s grateful to be a part of the continuum of nyc poetry, in his spare time he plays air guitar to everything.

Askia M. Toure’, poet, editor, activist, was co-founder, with Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal and Sonia Sanchez, of the Black Arts Cultural Revolution. He was an Umbra poet and is author of eight books, including From the Pyramids to the Projects, (1989 American Book Award winner). His Dawn-Song! (first Nile Valley epic written in English) won the 2003 Stephen Henderson Poetry Award. He was a member of RAM and SNCC and co-authored its Black Power Position Paper, which appeared in the NY Times. He taught African History in the pioneering Black Studies program at San Francisco State, was a feature writer for the Liberator, editorat-large for Journal of Black Poetry and contributing editor to Black Dialogue. He lives and writes in Roxbury, a section of Black Boston, MA.

Artress Bethany White is Associate Professor of English at Carson-Newman University and the author of the poetry collection Fast Fat Girls in Pink Hot Pants (2012). Recent poems have also appeared in Harvard Review, Black Renaissance Noire, and MELUS.

Toya Wolfe studied Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago and Youth Ministry at the Theological Seminary at Andrews University. Her writing has appeared in African Voices, Chicago Journal, Chicago Reader, Hairtrigger 27 and Warpland: A Journal of Black Literature and Ideas. She is the recipient of the Zora Neale Hurston-Bessie Head Fiction Award, the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation Short Story Competition, and the Betty Shifflet/John Schultz Short Story Award. She currently resides in Chicago, where she is at work on her first novel and an MFA in Creative Writing.

ARTISTS BIOS Front Cover artist: Malik Seneferu A self-taught poet, painter, draughtsman, muralist, and illustrator, Seneferu is also the founder of “Aesthetic Ascension” art social network. Seneferu’s work has traveled nationally and internationally. His work has traveled to Durban, South Africa’s “War against Racism” in 2001 as well as Italy, Haiti and Kenya. Seneferu’s work delivers messages of change and empowerment. Seneferu’s subject matter is rendered in a variety of techniques of approach, ranging from social, political and spiritual issues within challenged communities worldwide and he has become well known for his art- magnet invention. For information on Malik visit www.maliksart.com.

Back Cover artist: Abba Yahudah resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and divides his time between Jamaica, Oregon and the Bay Area. His art has traveled internationally, to Italy, Spain, Ethiopia, exhibiting at the Habesha and Lela Art Galleries, and Jamaica, with an exhibit at the University of the West Indies. He has also exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Abba Yahudah recently published is first scholarly endeavor, A Journey To The Roots of Rastafari – The Essene Nazarite Link, written, compiled and illustrated by him. To see more of Abba Yahudah’s work: www.thirdeyecolortherapy.com or www.abbayahudah.com.

Artists inside the issue: Ansel Butler is an Atlanta-based artist who began drawing and painting at a young age in Omaha, NE. He is the artist and owner of Ansel Butler LLC. As a child, his parents enrolled him in several art programs including The Jocelyn Art Museums Youth Artist Program. For over 10 years, Ansel worked in the Information Technology and Medical Consulting industries before pursing a career as an artist. In 2005, Ansel left the corporate world to focus his attention on the world of art and has not looked back. For information visit www.anselbutler.com.

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contributors Jimbe’ Carroll After completing preparatory school at Westchester College, Jimbe’ attended School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. His fine arts exhibitions include Genesis II Museum and Harlem Solo show at Casa Frela Gallery, Harlem. He also exhibited at the Schomburg Center in “Harlem Views/ Diasporan Visions with the New Harlem Renaissance Photographers.

Demar Douglas was born in Ypsilanti Mi and raised in Southern California. At a young age he already decided that he was going to be an artist when he grew up. After attending college he started the Blaqwata Studio. His art represents the essence of his life experience. All of Demar’s images appear to him in dreams and he interprets them with the stroke of a brush. For information visit www.demardouglas.com.

Lisa DuBois is a multimedia photo artist living in New York. Her work is unique in that it encompasses the best of two worlds, photography and painting; some of her work is embellished with small objects. DuBois is a graduate of the Germain School of photography and has received special recognition for her work as a photojournalist. Her work is part of the collection at the Gordon parks museum center in Kansas and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City.

Tyson Hall was raised in the Bronx amidst the hip-hop culture evolution that took place in the late 70’s, early 80’s. He chose graffiti as his art form because he could always find a medium to express himself. At John Jay College while enrolled in an art class, Tyson was inspired by the film on the life and art of Jean-Michel Basquiat. He purchased his first piece of canvas and began to paint.

Idris Hassan Idris Hassan’s photography and collage work has been featured in the Annual “Art of Living Black” Exhibition, at The African American Art and Culture Complex and at the Fort Mason Art Gallery in San Francisco, CA and has debuted a digital photo collage “Blak Man Reflections” as part of Afro Solo’s “Reflecting the Light Series” at the San Francisco Public Library.

Marcellous Lovelace “The art form that I practice is Painting in Mixed Media with Found Materials. I paint from my experience living on the South Side of Chicago and Living in Poverty in the State of Illinois…I work on everything from old found pieces of paper, garbage cans, tires, mattresses and used construction material found from torn down buildings. Chicago is such a diversely segregated environment it influences struggle and pain. I learned to call myself an Afro Urban Indigenous Folk Artist. The tragedies that occur in my city help me reinterpret the oppression on all surfaces.”

Jalani Morgan “I am a Toronto based, documentary and portraiture photographer. As an artist from the African Diaspora the narratives of the past have not been entirely the most authentic 12

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representation nor have they been created from producers within the Diaspora, and I center my vision from concepts from Stuart Hall that we have to re-imagine our history, and produce new bodies of work from our own imagination.” For information visit www.jalanimorgan.com.

Ocean Morisset “Since 2001, shortly after my initial introduction to photography, I began using my camera as a weapon against injustice, documenting the many protest movements that have unfolded in New York City. The iconic images from the 1963 March on Washington in particular, is what had charged me with the inspiration to continue in this tradition of Documentary Photography.” For information visit www.oceanmorisset.com.

Jamel Shabazz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of 15, Jamel picked up his first camera and started to document his peers. Inspired by photographers Leonard Freed, James Van Der Zee, and Gordon Parks, he was marveled with their documentation of the African American community.

Volunteers Needed! African Voices seeks experienced volunteers to help us remain a strong and vibrant organization. We welcome professionals with diverse backgrounds in art, business and education. Areas we need help in include fundraising, marketing, grantwriting and graphic design! For information contact:

212.865.2982 www.africanvoices.com

African Voices Changes Magazine Schedule & Launches New Website! Starting in April, our readers can enjoy new fiction, prose and art on a monthly basis online. You can also submit work of your own and have a chance to be published in our online edition. In 2015, we will publish two print issues (Spring and Fall). African Voices will change its publishing schedule to offer two print issues and one digital issue beginning in 2016. Your subscription will end once you get a third issue in 2016! We’re excited about embarking on a new chapter in our history. We will have an opportunity to publish more new writers and artists on our website, while continuing to publish print editions. The last few years have been challenging, as the costs of printing and mailing have risen drastically while resources were shrinking. This editorial change will allow us to remain competitive and position us to interact with a global audience. African Voices has a social media network of 20,000 followers and now we will be able to offer them a vibrant website to read provocative interviews, stories and poems. Our website has both written and video interviews. Please support us so that we can pay our contributors and meet the expenses of producing our print and online editions. Subscriptions are still $20, plus $2.50 for mailing costs. Donations are welcomed. Thanks for your support! Please visit the website at www.africanvoices.com and leave your comments and suggestions. For updates connect with us on Twitter: @africanvoices • @reelsisters

Start Your Writing Journey in June 2015 Register for our Memoir Writing Workshop! Do you have a story to tell? Start new work or spend the summer revising your work-in-progress in a professional and nurturing writing environment! Register early for a 4-week memoir writing workshop for only $125.

Memoir Writing Workshop Wednesdays, June 25-July 15, 6:30 pm-8:30 pm 270 W. 96th Street (bet. Bway & West End Ave.) Instructor: Michel Marriott Register Online Now! www.africanvoices.com 212.865.2982 Register Early & save $25! Code: SUMMERBREAK15

Reel Sisters & Kumble Theater Present Pride and Gender: A Film Conversation! Join Reel Sisters & Kumble Theater in celebrating LGBT month on June 4, 2015, 6 pm-8 pm. Enjoy an exciting line up of films and the world premiere of Ọya: Something Happened On The Way To West Africa! directed by Seyi Adebanjo. Oya, a documentary, illuminates the lives of Òrìṣà Ọya (Warrior Goddess), Chief Moloran Ìyá Ọlọ́ya and Seyi Adebanjo while interweaving Yorùbá mythology, poetry, performance, and expert interviews. For tickets and information visit: www.reelsisters.org • www.africanvoices.com african Voices

Dwana Smallwood’s Dance Baby Crowns in Bed-Stuy By Maitefa Angaza

Beautiful dreamer: Dwana Smallwood builds a future for dancers in Bedford Stuyvesant. Photo: Jordan Matter

“Dance is

my oxygen.” A multifaceted gem of dance education will soon shine from the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, thanks to world-celebrated dancer Dwana Smallwood. A longtime principal dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (1995-2007) and often compared to the great Judith Jamison, Smallwood is the striking figure we saw in many magazine and transit ads. Leaping further on to the world stage in 2009, she served as architect of the dance program at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. Not long before, she’d sat on Oprah’s couch and told America, “Dance is my oxygen.” “The decision to leave the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was not an easy one,” Smallwood says. “I wanted to die there. But I’ve also always wanted to give back. I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. Working with the girls in South Africa I learned what my purpose was. My message grew wings.”

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Although Smallwood arrived as artist-in-residence, she later created afterschool and mentorship programs, planned events and brought people from around the world to lecture and perform. She saw herself in the students and shared with them all she knew – from trusted instincts to hard-won lessons. Smallwood knows what if feels like to fly and she sought to share the magic of lift-off. “They didn’t realize that dance would be that powerful, would allow them to tap into that truest part of themselves. Not everyone was going to be a dancer. But they could say, ‘I have been given the opportunity to learn what I was born to be. I have a method to tap in, to appropriate everything I have to give.” In 2013, Smallwood returned home to birth the Dwana Smallwood Performing Arts Center in her native Bedford-Stuyvesant. She believes positive community identity is enhanced through encouraging artistic activity in underserved neighborhoods. “I am Isoke’s daughter,” says Smallwood, referring to the clear directives and example she was given as a child. “I have no choice but to pay back what I owe Brooklyn, what I owe Bedford-Stuyvesant. This neighborhood

made me what I am. It was never just a crime-ridden place or a source of cheap real estate. I was able to study dance with the best, right here in this community at a very young age and I grew to be filled with pride and purpose.”

with teens from the neighborhood over a six-week period, mentoring them and choreographing a performance for the Center’s groundbreaking ceremony last fall. The Center is due to open mid-April.

Smallwood was groomed at an early age to wield thunder and steal hearts. In addition to dancing on The Oprah Winfrey Show, she’s made several TV appearances, including The Today Show, The Kennedy Center Honors and even Sesame Street. She was on the cover of Dance Magazine three times and was featured in Vibe, Harper’s Bazaar, National Geographic and Girl Scout Magazine. It was only a matter of time before Vogue magazine proclaimed her “one of the greatest modern dancers” and in 2005 she was one of New York Magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful New Yorkers.” In 2009, she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement award from Ile-Ase and earlier this February was among the first to be honored (along with NYC First lady Chirlane McRae and others), with the Bedford Stuyvesant Museum of African Art first annual Nelson Mandela Humanitarian Award.

“This is another set of young women of color and they are dealing with what they are up against here,” she said. “There are so many challenges and they’re also thinking about boys, sexuality and beauty. I tell them, ‘Don’t walk in the world less than you were meant to be. You have no idea what power you’re holding. I want to show you just a bit of it. I don’t need to pour anything into you, just help to bring it out of you.’ ” While the girls are helping to herald the Center’s call, it’s for sure that people of all ages will answer. The Center will offer classes for adults as well, including yoga, Pilates and other fitness instruction, and of course, dance. And there’s so much to learn! Some will love the propulsive articulation of African dance, with classes at

Little dancers will grow in leaps and bounds big dreams at the DSPAC. Photo: Jordan Matter

Now Smallwood walks the streets of her beloved birthplace and envisions using the arts to empower, to mold elite dancers capable of competing on the world stage. The mission is to inspire and facilitate young people’s aspirations through discipline, pride, determination, humility, respect and an appreciation for the arts. And once again, she’s started with girls – her Youth Ambassadors. Last summer, Smallwood worked

all skill levels, the joyous abandon of Afro-Caribbean dance or the innovation of Afro-Fusion, which integrates styles such as Gumboot, Pantsula and Indlamu with Western contemporary movement. Others will relish the discipline and grace of Ballet, with its focus on alignment, refinement, body-sculpting and strength. Jazz dance will inspire those drawn to its dramatic energy, syncopation and theatricality. african Voices

Modern dance students will master floor work, fall and recovery, and learn to convey emotion. In Tap class they’ll develop the rhythm and improvisational skills to become percussive musicians. Some will favor the vitality, fluidity and complex footwork of House dance or the force, rhythm and high-velocity clicks, pops and locks of Hip Hop dance. There will be classes for true beginners, intermediate sessions and advanced classes. More than just a way in which she, personally, can give back, Dwana strongly believes that dance can be a tool for living. “Dance allows people to block out the noise of the world that distracts us from finding our path. I see it as a prayer that helps people tap into and express the essence of who they were meant to be.” Local community residents are powerfully proud of their dance legend and Smallwood is elated! She hopes people will spread the good word and visit the DSPAC’s website to learn more about her dream and how to take part in making it come true. She can’t wait to invite all to come, bear witness and celebrate when the Center opens and she gets to share her love, her inspiration, her oxygen.

Dwana with family, friends, key supporters and her Youth Ambassadors at the PAC groundbreaking last fall. Photo: Imhotep A. Pease

Dwana Smallwood Performing Arts Center, Inc., 857 Lexington Avenue, 2nd Fl, Brooklyn, NY 11221. For information, visit dwanasmallwoodpac.org or contact the center at 718-443-9800.

Grounded Lust drags like a dress in need of hemming. With fistfuls of skirt, I lean into wind. Sprinting and breathless, right, then left sandal lands upside down and sideways in the sand. So this is what legs do. What the body can do. With each footfall I trust the earth to hold me up until I am tired of running, until decisions eddy, until I let longing rush from my grasp and touch down with brown fingers to feel rock, beach, bark of tree, rhythm of land pulling away and back again, heave, and fissure. You roll under me like ground: cracked, solid, and as wide as a canyon’s beginning. © 2015 Ama Codjoe 16

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THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND STAFF OF THE

UPPER MANHATTAN EMPOWERMENT ZONE CONGRATULATES

AFRICAN VOICES MAGZINE On the occasion of its 23rd Anniversary

Kenneth J. Knuckles, President & CEO

Mario L. Baeza, Chairman

55 West 125th Street New York, New York 10027 www.umez.org

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ROUND MIDNIGHT

OCEANIC

As opposed to a square one round midnight is the midpoint of night the radius of the circularity of a slumbered dream untangled with no chance of free rides or the games people play the changes, the hustle, angles to put you through the games that need a mark such as you a person to be vamped desired by undesirables in the dark times they whomp till you are dry with light turned on in your sleep you’re a nobody a person of no interest a piece of meat waiting to be devoured or deflowered one way or another the other waiting walking slowly in the dark?

these oceans we carry are massive we are tidal waves waiting to burst crashing against the edges of our skin

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the sand in our mouth is a reminder of the water we are these bodies we float in are enormous we get lost shipwrecked during our travels we never carry compasses we search for the secluded land of our hearts the uncharted islands of our ribs let us discover peninsulas in our legs archipelagos in our stomachs let us discover the marinara trenches of our voices, dangerous, beautiful this journey will last as long as we can hold our breaths let us find the new land of our lives © 2015 Bonafide Rojas

The Usual Suspects Midnight: werewolves howl in killer Bat-mobiles, whose sirens are blue graffiti Art: Aziza

against the Ghetto’s inky walls. Maniacs, Psychopaths, unleashed against a Bantu nation resonant with blues. Who walks these mean streets beside innocent youths absent of Rites-of-Passage, and Ancestral blessings? Raging with Hip Hop anger, slender frames in baggy pants, whose fades and dreadlocks shine like bulls-eyes in the hellish American Nightmare. © 2015 Askia Touré

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F I C T I O N

CHAINED By Kleaver Cruz

An Excerpt: The tightening of the chain on the door was one of Delmar’s least favorite sounds. It meant that he’d have to go back down those four flights of stairs and ring the doorbell. The cuffs of his shorts stuck to the sweat on the backs of his knees as he lunged forward to push the door a little harder, hoping his mother might hear his efforts. The chain tightened. Gladys fell asleep again after coming in from her night shift and getting paranoid. The people in 4F and the neighbors below in 3E were robbed a few days before and both incidents involved people posing as UPS employees or door-to-door salespeople. She wasn’t willing to take the chance of simply ignoring an unwarranted knock on the door. There needed to be an assurance that if she fell asleep, her apartment would not get broken into. Delmar figured if they were going to get robbed, a worn-out chain wouldn’t keep thieves out, but Gladys didn’t see it that way. The air was thick with the comfort of strangers who had shared a building for decades, yet had never learned each other’s names. It was faster to go down the stairs than wait for the elevator. The scar on the back of Delmar’s right knee itched a little. A few months earlier while running down the stairs, he’d slipped on tobacco from the guts of a blunt and cut himself on the sharp edge of a step. His little brother Franklin poked the cut sometimes when they would take the stairs against his will. That is, when someone was hogging the elevator or whenever Franklin, in his 13-year-old glory, dared to challenge Delmar’s physical abilities. Delmar couldn’t stand the thought of losing any competition to his little brother, no matter how much his chest tightened at the end of those races. On the way down, neighbors smiled and waved as Delmar tried his best to slide from floor to floor without being noticed. “Hola, papito!” Yelled Doña Miguela on the third floor. “Pero mira que grande ‘ta el muchachito del cuarto piso!” Her sister added to the greeting. “Hey brother, how’s everything?” asked Khari from the 2nd floor. Good. Everything was always good when the neighbors asked. The grey of his T-shirt got darker as he descended the stairs. It was a few days before the beginning of tenth 20

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grade and everyone was outside. It was one of the last chances to have a full day on the block before school started and truancy officers would begin making their rounds. Delmar was excited to not have to work as many hours at Bargains USA, a thrift shop on Jerome Ave. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take of rearranging clothes that will rarely be sold and pieces of furniture that will never be wanted. Gladys insisted he get a job if he wanted anything. “I’m only responsible for necessities,” she told him at the beginning of that summer. He needed more boxes for his collection. A small Cuban cigar box started it all. It was the only thing he had that belonged to his dad, Rafael, who snuck it onto a flight to New York once after taking a weekend trip to Havana from Santo Domingo in the early ‘90s. Aside from the lingering smell of tobacco and Caribbean air, the box was empty by the time Delmar’s five-year-old hands opened it. He filled it with Father’s Day cards, notes, clippings and some of his favorite toys. Delmar used to imagine that as he closed the box with those prized possessions his father would open an identical one, wherever he was, and smile. Delmar pictured the bright and crooked smile on his father’s face as he thumbed through his first son’s accomplishments and favorite toys. When the first box was filled a few years later, he asked Gladys to get him a new one for his ninth birthday. “Really?” Somewhat confused by her son’s request. “You don’t want anything else? You can get a videogame if you want.” “No thanks Ma, just another empty box like this one,” Delmar insisted. Gladys caressed his face, “Ok Mar.” As the years went on Delmar began to fill those boxes with more of his inner self. Folded pictures from magazines, dreams, notes, tears and whatever else he wanted to see in his world, but felt the world was not yet ready to see in his. At the beginning of that summer when Delmar started working at Bargains USA, the one privilege from working in what felt like a dingy basement were the boxes donated every so often. It was the only time he used his employee discount. Four dollar boxes were three dollars and if he

happened to be doing inventory on the day a box came in, the item never made it to the shelves. He took a deep breath, wiped his brow and adjusted the thin gold chain sticking to his chest (he spent half of his first check on it). Delmar could see everybody from the block outside on milk crates, other people’s cars and against the building. Ringing that bell would draw all the attention he didn’t want, but it was either waiting in the stairwell or waking his mother up.

bodega. It could’ve been the subtle stretch of his t-shirts around defined arms and the looseness of that same cloth around his waist. Last year, Mr. Elanom told his biology class that it was natural for boys to check out other boys. It was their way of figuring out what they wanted to see in themselves. Delmar thought he wanted his body to look like Jorge’s. Or did he want it? “Papito, come upstairs already!” Gladys lifted the window just above the iron guards and stuck her head above them to see what was holding her son up from coming home.

Art: Aziza

This is why I need a cellphone. As his thumb pressed into the round button under the barely legible “4E” Delmar wiped the sweat from his forehead with the collar of his T-shirt. No answer. He held the button again for 19 seconds, hoping that she’d hear him. Everyone perked their ears up to hear who would respond to the ring as they pretended to be deep in each other’s conversations. Why couldn’t they take care of their own kid? Delmar could sense that his mom was getting tired of not being there for him and Franklin in the way she thought she should be. He knew they had to hold on a little longer; this new job kept a roof over their heads. He finally heard the scratchy sound of static over the intercom as Gladys spoke. “I’m sorry Mar.” As Delmar opened the door to go back into the building, he saw him. There was something about Jorge Bautista that always seemed to make Delmar’s day when he saw him. Maybe it was his smile brighter than Obama’s on the “Yes We Can” poster outside of the

Hey Delmar. How you doing Jorge? That’s the conversation he imagined at least, but Jorge was always busy strolling past him with the rest of his boys. His building, 2101 Walton Ave., wasn’t the most beautiful home on the block, but it had seen better days than some of the other ones in the neighborhood. The now greyed black-and-off-white tiles lined the lobby with chipped edges. The layer of glass between the wroughtiron doors blurred with fingerprints. An oversized mirror above the marble mantle was his least favorite part of walking across the checkered floor. It reminded him of what he wasn’t and did not want to see. Unwilling to take the stairs again, Delmar pressed both of the buttons to call the elevator. He wondered why he and so many others excessively pressed those buttons. The elevator didn’t come down any faster.

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As the elevator screeched slowly to a halt, he anticipated running to the bathroom. He always had to pee when he got home. A purging of another day’s waste. Entering the elevator, he remembered a trick he saw on TV at some point in the summer: hold the “close” button and the button for the floor you’re going to. The dusty white guy on TV said it took you to your floor without any stops. Delmar couldn’t tell if this was real or if he always seemed to take the elevator when no one else had to use it. He rushed in as the door slid open then held the “door close” and “4” button. With a focused pressure on the buttons, he wondered if anyone else had ever tried this. Fifty-nine seconds later the doors slid open. Entering 4E, a light smoke filled the already thick air. Gladys liked to clear her apartment of bad spirits regularly with the St. Michael’s incense she gets from the botanica; they had enough bad luck on their own and she didn’t need any more coming in from outside. Gladys held her favorite mug and swayed a little, humming with Mary J. Blige’s “Be Happy.” Delmar remembered to lock both locks and put the chain on the door. Since before people were actually getting robbed in their building, the Almontes have slid hope into that rusty chain each time they set the little circle on its track. “Did you put the chain on?” Gladys sipped her light and sweet cup of Café Bustelo. “Yes,” Delmar responded under his breath, “Every day Ma.” Gladys reached out for her son, “I’m sorry, mijo. Es que me dormí y no me di cuenta. My alarm didn’t go off and next thing I know, the intercom is buzzing.” “It’s ok Ma, ta bien,” Delmar assured her. Gladys was determined to squeeze the love from her heart into the lives of her sons. She kneaded that love into their warm bodies with hugs that were slightly too long and slaps upside the head for not using the wisdom she taught them. “I love you, Mar.” “I love you too, Ma.” All Delmar wanted was to be happy and that looked like having his own room. His own space that allowed him to be. The Neighborhood Friends Housing Authority had denied his mother’s request for relocation nine out of the nine times she attempted to move with their services. Their building wasn’t a bad place to stay. There was a clean lobby, the halls were well lit and there was an elevator. With more years and more memories collected, the walls began to buckle a little. The rooms felt closer together and some walls had shrunk. Faded pencil marks in thresholds clung to old memories. It was not in the plan to live in 4E for 10 years. Delmar couldn’t tell if it was his memory or the one he constructed through pictures

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and the ritual storytelling of what once was and may never be again, but he knew it was time to go. There’s something about comfort. For Delmar, it was in knowing every square inch of the space, so that when it was the middle of the night and he didn’t want to turn the lights on for fear of waking himself up too much, he knew where to walk to avoid tripping. Despite the hopes of having a room to himself, Delmar was comfortable in this home. He was never sure what would be behind the door of his room though. “What are you doing?” Confusion and anger made its way across Delmar’s sweaty face.

Franklin smirked, “Hey Mar.”

“I said what are you doing?” Delmar repeated himself. About 10 or 11 small wooden boxes surrounded Franklin. Some were stacked on top of one another, some strewn about and one was open. Delmar could see a stick-figure sketch of two boys; one was short with a few scraggly hairs on his head and a beaming smile. The other beamed with a perfect half-moon below his nose and figure eights where the arms should be.

“What the hell are you doing touching my stuff, Frankie?!”

The sweat froze on Delmar’s face as the oscillating fan blew humidity around the room. He shoved Franklin onto the twin-sized bed. Franklin responded defensively, confused as he massaged his right shoulder. “I needed somewhere else to put all my change in. My jar is full. What the hell is your problem Mar?!” Delmar paused. Franklin had asked the one question he couldn’t answer. The one he’d avoided asking himself. Did he, in fact, have a problem? “I’m tired of telling you to leave my stuff alone, Frankie. Especially when I’m not here! What part of no don’t you understand: The ‘n’ or the ‘o’?!” “Don’t even start,” Gladys warned from the living room. Delmar felt sick. Terrified that Franklin saw the rough sketch of him and Jorge, he fought to still his frantic thoughts and racing mind. There was no problem. He just wanted to be Jorge’s friend, right? He wanted Jorge to see him for once. But why, he wondered. Delmar slammed the lid to the incriminating box and threw the others to the floor, shoving them all back under his bed. Back until they touched the wall.

I need my own room.

The Academy The academy wants artifice eloquent erasure spreadsheets in the black new donors with old names a stream of carbon copy bodies that lift scrub lay down push paper with a smile and never ask why food is chemistry why poverty runs in the family how we even got here What I have to say wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be filed in ivy walls places with protocols against spontaneous joy This heart/speech is saying has said bares repeating still These words roll bounce between the lips of the sisters who bend my locks into sculpture

These ideas drip down the backs of unnamed builders, concrete churners who work always off-the-books This speech floats through the asylum and in between lion cages called solitary confinement This me today sees you cannot not see you knows that you are dancing on my neck I must speak always with this inherited breath that carries me through drudgery for a little fresh food and a 2 a.m. space to dream unexplored ideas damned good poetry that evaporates under heavy lids piles of bills asking eyes of children throbbing feet alone-ness in crowded rooms of suits and practiced laughter All structures will fall ÂŠ 2015 Keisha-Gaye Anderson

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Artist: Tyson Hall, Freedom is Not Free Artist: Marcellous Lovelace, She Cried

Artist: Ansel Butler, Stand Our Ground

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Artist: Marcellous Lovelace, Intelligent Black Girl

Photo: Jalani Morgan, Toronto

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ÂŠ 2015 Jalani Morgan, Toronto 26

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Artist: Ansel Butler, Prelude A (Civil Right Leaderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s) Funeral

Photo: Jimbeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Carroll, Soothing the Pain

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Artist: Demar Douglas, Parental Advisory

Artist: Lisa DuBois

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Artist: Idris Hassan, Blak Man Reflections

Artist: Ocean Morisset, Black Lives Matter 30

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8 Haiku

BOOM boom, badda badda boom boom boom crack boom boom crack My dreams are filled with thunder and drums old fears splinter under the axe of a destiny embraced boom boom These dreams be magic and memory, a storm of future responsibilities kept by the rhythm of drums. I pray at crossroads, ride river currents, say thank you to the ocean. badda badda boom boom boom Before waking, the dead speak to me they been waiting for me to open my mouth speak words as a war cry they want me to chant down hanging bodies call the living dead out they graves break the chains of modern day slaves crack boom boom boom I see unmarked graves in downtown Manhattan where the Lenape lay I hear African songs between Wall Street banks, feel the ground shake as bare feet dance boom, badda badda boom boom boom speak for us son they say boom, badda badda boom boom boom crack boom boom, badda boom boom crack don’t just tell our story.

for Amiri Baraka

first month of the year— you transform into Transbluesency winter recliner— you bend language across borders snow-glazed night your words flare off the page all the voices rising from Yugen… the heater hums close reading… I recall your voice amid the chill falling temperature… a student’s research paper on your riffs frigid shadows— black pupils stare from Home the cold deepens… the conjuring of Blues People

tell yours.

Toshi Reagon on Making Parable of the Sower Sing by Maitefa Angaza

vision, faith, family, creativity and community.

Photo: Kevin Yatarola

Formidable yet accessible, Toshi Reagon is just the musical artist needed for these times. While critically and rightfully acclaimed for her chops, her vision, caring and courage also impresses loyal fans. She’ll rock you like a badass and soothe you like a mama, all in service of the tender and the tough-love truth. So naturally, audiences were thrilled by the recent Under the Radar 2015 presentation of Parable of the Sower: The Concert Version, an early look at an opera by Toshi and her mom, Bernice Johnson Reagon, the prodigious singer, composer and founder emeritus of the legendary a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock. Toshi and Bernice’s opera is based on award-winning sci-fi novelist Octavia Butler’s beloved novel, Parable of the Sower. Set in the year 2024, the post-apocalyptic novel introduces characters set on establishing a new way of living in a new place. Lauren Oya Olamina, a young Black woman empath, leads the way out of the bleak and violent California city of Robledo, where the poor and desperate are crushed by the wealthy and powerful. Among the themes addressed in the absorbing story are: race, gender, crime, justice, the economy, the environment, spirit, 32

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The work-in-progress concert had five performances in January at The Public Theater in New York City. Giving voice to the piece along with Toshi, was an enthralling cast of singers, including: Bertilla Baker, Helga Davis, Carla Duren, Randy Jeter, Karma Mayet Johnson, Marcelle Davies Lashley, Stephon Lashley, Josette Marchak, Morley, Shayna Smalls and Jason Charles Walker, along with poet Carl Hancock Rux. Accomplished musicians Juliette Jones (violin), Marika Hughes (cello), Bobby Burke (drums), Fred Cash Jr. (bass), and Adam Widoff (guitar) joined Toshi, also on guitar. The concert, performed primarily in a circle and accompanied each evening by Toshi’s prologue, was so affecting that jaded New Yorkers searched for words to adequately describe the experience. For Toshi, who cites Parable of the Sower as a book that “helped shape my life,” this was a genuine labor of love. “Octavia Butler writes fiction, but she doesn’t lie,” said Reagon. “I think she really was saying, ‘This is how it will be. This is what is necessary to survive. Even the most generous of sprits will have trouble. Humans are good at creating hell on earth.’ I kind of had that before I read this book, but the book laid it out. Not just, ‘It’s destruction,’ but an understanding towards an end. A releasing of what you know into an unknown, towards something righteous

and evolving that might one day take us to the stars.” Why tell the tale this way? “We are musicians,” said Toshi. “We had to do this this way. Toni Morrison asked us to do one of her Princeton Ateliers. We taught music and the book Parable of the Sower. After that we started looking at this work as an opera.” Of working with her mom, she says, “The process is always different for each project. She is full of surprises. We know each other very well and come with who we are into each process.” When asked about the challenges met in bringing a work such as Parable of the Sower to the concert stage (its interim incarnation), Reagon responded with the pragmatism of an activist artist. “The reward for me in being an artist is that I am an artist,” said Reagon. “My mom told me my only failure would be if I stopped doing my art. [There are] always challenges at every level. I have learned that it helps to collaborate well, and make sure you sit in a circle of good and dedicated folks.” In Parable of the Sower, unity is a critical key to survival. Like Lauren, Toshi finds great value and joy in creating art through collaboration, which many would say is an art unto itself. “I love to work with good people. I have so much respect for my friends and what they do. I love working with folks that know something really different than I do – and I like being moved in a different direction than I thought I was going in.” Fulfilling as it was for audiences, the Public Theater’s presentation was the first public birthing of a project that’s been in the works for years. It will evolve some, but the time – and need – for it is pressing. “We are in it!” Toshi says of the novel. “Nine years away from where Octavia placed it.” Novels remain an important part of the landscape of human development, Toshi feels. “Folks better read books and ‘get’ their lives! We need the open space of our minds. We need to not read news all day long. We need our alone time with a good story and our imagination. The sun… your eyes on a page… I also love books on tape (CD/Mp3).” And of the opera project, she says, “We are on our way. I just know I want it to be great, travel and be accessible to a wide range of communities. I hope that it brings us together and helps contribute in a positive way against the destruction of the world.”

Toshi closed this interview with African Voices with an uncompromising declaration of intent, a rallying cry to face facts about art, society, imbalance and injustice. It speaks for itself, much like the uncut funk, blazing rock, bruising blues and tender love that is her music. Keep your eyes and ears open for more that is remarkable and true from this inspiring artist. We end with her words to you: “People who have to survive hardship become artists. They have to learn how to create out of the leftovers and what is on the ground and what falls from the sky. They have to find ways to sustain their health. They have to make clothing. That is why it is so dangerous, all of this privatization of water, land, rainwater, etc.—Monsanto and their fake-ass seeds blowing in the wind. The glacial pace of the US politicians to stop whatever poison is killing bees. The unending thirst for money by those who already have so much. The constant setting up of a dynamic of hatred and violence. The stealing of the simple tools that my ancestors created to live through brutality. We need the ability to steal ourselves away from harm and we can’t if we have a tracking device on us at all times. [We need] the ability to create medicine out of plants and water… to gather and be free and own your body and what you do with it. This country has done all it can, and does all it can, to act against collaboration of diverse people: Laws that just changed in the last century around Black people gathering, voting. Laws against women’s equality. An unending thirst to know how people are having sex and to legislate what grown people do together. All of this is to maintain a pyramid of power for only one group of humans in this land. They are rich, they are white, and they are male. The only hope is for the rest of us to get over the idea that those people will ever work towards a balance that would lessen power for them and shift and shape the new possibilities of existence for humans in this world. Coming together… Respecting one another… No violence… No stealing. Generosity – working with the ecosystem we have and trying our best. It is the only hope.” Toshi invests her heart and soul in making art that makes a difference. It’s the ecosystem she knows best. For her it’s a simple truth: “Art is a basic resource for survival – no matter what.”

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Fade to black Grow like a fetus with no hands and feet to complete us and we return like Jesus, when the whole world need us RZA (Wu-Tang’s Reunited)

Shonettia says she has two tongues and I, of course, reply I know. And she assures me this is no metaphor, that there is another tongue in her mouth behind the obvious one, down in the throat, so to speak. When I ask to see it, she says it isn’t yet time, which is another reason I’d always known of the second tongue. Truth is, there is nothing to report. Angel and I are forever investigating blackness – from the dungeons of our own skins, from our own socio-cultural high horses (she back East in a college I used to attend, I in a Mid-West she couldn’t escape fast enough), so we know black women stay doubletongued, stay in the cut of waiting for the right time to tell the truth. In the last season of the Arsenio Hall show, it gets really buckwild. Arsenio, no doubt black, and front-man of the only such late night talk show, has already catapulted Bill Clinton to the front of the polls; and the presidency, has already interviewed NWA, let them say nigga on air in prime time, let them explain themselves in the song Fuck the Police. Arsenio has had Eddie Murphy and Michael Jackson present each other with awards. Arsenio has invented the dawg pound (and birthed a whole new generation of frat boys in the process – you have no idea how black this is). Arsenio has punked Vanilla Ice. Here’s the blackest question ever asked on late night television on any major network:

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Ice, why are you out in public with Flavor Flav these days? Are you trying to show us you have black friends? Arsenio dug deep into the dungeon of his own high top fade and purple suits and got real black for America; so black, he let Farrakhan explain himself, so black, he showed us Mike Tyson’s human face – you have no idea how black that is, so black, he lined up an all-star cast of rappers to close out the last show of his last season, and some would say, his career Harriet Tubman – double tongued Audre Lorde – double tongued bell hooks – double tongued Angela Jackson – double tongued Marian Anderson – hella double-tongued Odetta – double tongued Phyllis Wheatley – double tongued Oprah Winfrey is about to run the cultural end-around of a lifetime, about to get so black, how black? so black you’ll fuck around and sit on her at the movies; oil spill black, Strom Thurmond grandchildren black, Flava Flav and ODB type black. I’m rooting for Oprah’s second tongue.

Shonettia says she has less control of the second tongue. It will not speak alone. It cannot make love. She can make it cough, she says, or make beautiful epiglottal guttural noises that sound like they come from her heart. Even these, she will not yet exhibit. Angel says, she stays being bored with professors who’ve done even less investigating than she, says the least black thing going is Finals Week, says she’s getting words tattoed up her shoulders that’ll burst into unrecognizable birds – says this is the blackest thing she can think of. We’re steady being convinced that we’re post-race, while the first black president fields more death threats than the previous 43, combined. 15 years ago, Arsenio’s last show fades to black with a glossy onyx stage, peopled by a who’s who of rap literati. Only one voice can be heard above the fray. It’s Old Dirty Bastard, telling a truth America still isn’t ready for – a truth Arsenio had no business revealing: The black man is God The black man is God The black man is God The black man is God The black man is God Shonettia could have schooled him. It isn’t yet – time.

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F I C T I O N

Migration by Toya Wolfe Way back in the day, when the Sox still played at Comiskey, and no one ever would’ve thought that Marshall Field’s and the Sears Tower would change their names, all 28 of the Robert Taylor Homes buildings marched up and down State Street from 39th to 54th. The housing project’s high-rises shot up into the air, 16 stories, looming over apartment buildings, schools and police stations. If you zipped down the Dan Ryan, the buildings would be there, their windows, like millions of eyes, watching. If you hopped on the 29 bus at Navy Pier and fell asleep, you’d wake up and find yourself on a ghetto tour— building after building, masses of people. A sharper eye would catch drug transactions disguised as handshakes, pistols bulging under crumpled white tees, and naked lust for an entrance into this criminal world emanating from little boys whose mamas bought them shoes from Payless. Some people hungered to get out, but it was difficult to escape the Robert Taylor Homes. The buildings were off-white and a chunk of them were rust-colored. You’d see a few blocks of red buildings, then white, then red, then white, then red—and it would go on like that. We talked about the buildings in colors: “She in the white building across from the Currency Exchange” or “They stay in one of them red buildings on 47th.” Gangs divided up the buildings. On one city block, you could have two different gangs. I lived in 4950, a building that was GD, and just across the playground, in 4946, were the BDs. Both buildings red, but led by two different philosophies. For this reason, there was no playing in the playground that sat right between these rival gangs. People tried not to walk through it because, at any moment, it could become a battlefield. If you heard that the block was in war, you stayed in the house, crouched in a hallway, on the floor, where you wouldn’t catch a bullet meant for somebody else. My building was sandwiched between DuSable High School and the tracks that the Metra and freight trains rolled on. This was the real playground for kids; they couldn’t resist climbing the mountain that led to the tracks and all the overgrown greenery up there. The buildings had two openings: you could come in through the playground, and be right by the elevator or enter 36

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through the opposite side, closer to the parking lot. My friends and I used the parking-lot side because it was closer to our school, stores, and the candy truck. When you entered that way, you had to go through “the breezeway.” We called it that because, for some reason, there was always a strong blast of wind in the tunnel, whipping around trash tornadoes and blowing weed smoke in your face. That’s where the mailboxes were, where people got their “aid” checks on the first of the month or grabbed their ComEd bills. You could count on walking through a Soul Train line of dudes, watching for both sport and security. Some of them had a real job to do, looking out for strange people who didn’t belong, like undercover police, so that if they yelled those within earshot, who were up to no good, could scatter. If you were a kid, you knew to get out of the way or you’d be knocked over, maybe even shot. There was a system to everything, and even if you didn’t have all the details about what was happening, you understood enough, and it kept you alive. The demolition on my block started the summer that I turned 12. My best friend Stacia and her family had just moved into 4950 the year before. I didn’t know right away, but they moved from a project building on 39th because the Chicago Housing Authority had decided that her family wasn’t “lease compliant.” That meant they didn’t meet the requirements to move to a better place. If your kids were in and out of jail or known gangbangers, you wouldn’t be lease compliant. If you were months behind on one of your utility bills or didn’t pay your rent consistently, you got shuffled around the remaining projects, because only lease compliant families got what the CHA was advertising on TV and bus ads, CHAnge. Every time a building was demolished, they would move the Buchanans to another project building. The Buchanans were big time drug dealers and highranking officials with the GDs. The matriarch, Gail, chose 4950 because her sons needed to clique in with the same gang so that their safety, rank and cash flow would be guaranteed. There were families like the Buchanans all over Robert Taylor, big families who came in all shapes, sizes

and colors, but with the same eyes or noses or heads. The Buchanans had these heads shaped like peanuts, and squinty eyes with a face of many folds that made them look a little like bulldogs. Gail had fourteen kids. Two of them were serving time in the penitentiary, one, whose name I can’t remember, in the Audy Home, the juvenile jail, and another, Ed, who got out of the family business and lived with his wife and kids in Hammond, Indiana. The other ten lived in 1502, a four-bedroom apartment. My other best friend at the time was Precious, a spoiled, church girl whose mama had grown up with mine. Precious, Stacia, and I were a weird trio for a few years. I was with them the day the city started tearing down our neighborhood. Our teacher let us go for the day, and we sprinted out the doors and saw this big crowd at the end of the block. We didn’t have the walk signal at the intersection, so we stood there, looking. Well, Precious and I stood and waited, but Stacia was jumping up and down, sometimes bumping into the crossing guards. Precious stood calmly, Photo: Michael R. Allen like she was royalty or someone anticipating paparazzi. When the light turned green, the pack of kids we were in began rushing across the street. Precious dragged behind, her bookbag knocking against her because she carried too many things: stuff for her hair and stuff for her skin and extra snacks and Band-Aids and books to read in the morning before school started and books to read at lunchtime (because sometimes she’d just check out on us) and a change of shoes. She was so extra. I couldn’t believe that our buildings were coming down. I thought Robert Taylor would always exist. My grandma moved in a year after they opened, in 1963. My grandfather had been abusive. So one day grandma left. Once grandpa had gone off to work, the moving men arrived, loaded up the apartment, and drove all of her things over to the Taylor Homes. I grew up in the same apartment that she fled to, and there was so much of her that remained: an end table made of wood and marble;

a floor-model TV, her sewing machine, the hot comb that straightened or curled mama’s and auntie Nora’s hair every week. Mostly, it was our family’s southern traditions that kept her memory alive. On Sundays, she’d do her daughters’ hair in the kitchen. Every Friday she’d get up and cook a big dinner of collard greens, red beans, cornbread, macaroni and cheese, and desserts for days. These dishes took hours to make, and you’d hang out in kitchen and living room smelling them, while you sang and made fun of one another. Then, you’d sit at the kitchen table and enjoy the feast as a family. Even as the neighborhood started to deteriorate, I think it was hard for us to shake the memory of what Robert Taylor did for our family. When Precious, Stacia, and I finally got up to where people had gathered to watch the demolition, I thought about how the crowd, for once, wasn’t there for a fight. I saw Mr. Muhammad from the Food & Liquors and Ms. Rose who ran the candy truck. There were a bunch of gangbangers, crackheads, and little old ladies. Even Mama Pearl was in the crowd. It was rare to catch Mama Pearl outside. She didn’t trust the neighborhood anymore. But on that day she’d crawled out of hiding, and stood there with everyone else, letting herself forget the terrible things she’d seen this crowd do to one another. She’d watched cute kids grow up to become fiends or drink and drug themselves to death. She’d watched descendants of her old friends ruin their family’s names. For Mama Pearl, it wasn’t just about the loss of bricks and iron. What had already broken her heart was the demolition of so many families over the years. Everybody was looking at the little ball swinging from a wire cord; it seemed too thin. Some people watched wordlessly. Other people couldn’t shut up. Two winos were talking when we got there. “Didn’t I tell you?” one asked. “I told you they was gon’ knock ’em all down. Goddamn Mayor Daley!” african Voices

“Papa Daley put em up,” his friend replied, taking a swig from a crumpled paper bag, “Junior knocked ’em down.” “This don’t make no damn sense! They just gon’ put us out?” a lady said. A man snapped his head in her direction. “Yo ass going right down the street to another building. You know you ain’t lease compliant.” Later that day I’d get mad at mama because she had a chance to calm my fear and anxiety about our future—Were we lease compliant? Would we have to move to a building where we didn’t know the unwritten rules?—but she wouldn’t talk about it. While in the crowd, I overheard a kid ask, “Why come they tearin’ up that building?” He was too little to be outside by himself, but kids did what they wanted in my neighborhood. DayDay, a gang leader on my block, looked over at him and said, like he was passing on age-old wisdom, “’Cause white people want to be closer to they jobs, lil’ man.” That set off the crowd. “Ain’t that some shit? Like we don’t get no say?” a lady said, her hand on her hip. Mama Pearl started to walk off, but then she stopped and looked back at the wrecking ball. Her weary eyes found mine, and I saw that her soft, reflective face was gone, replaced by the stern one the one that kept us kids in line. Her voice, the quietest one, was what I needed to hear. Before her hair turned white from stress or horror or just old age (she was 72), Mama Pearl, whose real name is Lucille Perkins, worked with my grandma, Mabel Stevens, at the White Cake and Candy Company in Jackson, Mississippi. Mama Pearl had plump fingers with wide nails, so I couldn’t imagine them wrapping foils over truffles. (I learned over the years not to be surprised by anything this woman could do.) Though they were surrounded by the scent of butter and chocolate and even could taste the sugar in the air, their lives in Mississippi were soured by racially motivated hate crimes and poverty. Most of the girls in the shop spent their shift gossiping, but Mama Pearl worked out her escape route. Huge trains clanked and screeched as they pulled into the station just across from the shop. She’d tune out talk of boyfriends and church socials and fantasize about hopping aboard. On her 18th birthday, Lucille finally took a train north to Chicago, with grandma along for the ride. Pearl’s father would help them rent an apartment. In 1944, only a week after their arrival at the Roosevelt station, they both landed jobs at the Curtiss Candy Company, the makers of Baby Ruth and Butterfinger. Six months after their move north, grandma was engaged to 38

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my grandfather, Percival Stevens. After the wedding, she and Mama Pearl lost touch. Grandma left Curtiss Candy to be a homemaker, and Pearl kept working. Eventually, she’d rent a room from a woman who owned a dry cleaner at 43rd and State, just blocks away from where grandma was living in the newly built Robert Taylor Homes. One day, Mama Pearl boarded the State Street bus, the same bus grandma happened to be on, and they began chirping updates at one another. Grandma told Pearl about the Robert Taylor Homes and urged her to come to dinner that night. Pearl fell in love with the community the complex provided. Though the brick structures cast shadows on the block, the gardens and playgrounds were lovely, and the neighbors helped keep an eye on one another’s children. Mama Pearl eventually left the dry cleaner and moved onto the same floor as grandma. She babysat mama and Auntie Nora and became part of our family. Later, as gangs began to form, and Mama Pearl began to feel unsafe as a single, working woman, she thought it necessary to buy both a Buick and a gun. It would take only one attempted attack for word to spread that Lucille Perkins carried a pistol with a pearl handle, and that she’d shot her assailant in the leg. People left her alone, and that’s when she became known as Mama Pearl. I pulled on Stacia’s arm, and she yanked it back, but Precious followed and we trailed Mama Pearl into the building. On the elevator, she turned to us, her face tight with thought, a finger pointing between the two of us. “Now you listen here. They gone tear down these buildings, and you gone hurt for your friends and the good times. But you got a lot more living to do. You hear me?” We nodded. “This was a place to live, but it ain’t your life.” We just looked at her. She didn’t blink. She didn’t explain. She was done. The elevator doors opened, and we went our separate ways. Me and Precious jammed our faces against the crisscrossed iron gate and watched the playground and 4946. Each time the ball made contact, the bricks fell apart like cookie crumbs. Stacia eventually came upstairs and joined us. The gathering down on the ground slowly broke up as people remembered what they were supposed to be doing: selling drugs, looking for pop cans, begging for crack quarters, playing by the railroad tracks, or running inside to get started on homework. Once the crowd thinned, we remembered that we had something to do too: Double Dutch. Precious, Stacia, and I removed our faces from the gate. We looked like somebody had branded us, the imprint of the iron on our skin. We hung out for a while talking about the buildings and boys and rope and eventually the pattern faded.

Shades of Green Iridescent green, the color of your 1962 Chevy Impala with doors so heavy it took both my child-sized hands to close them. Olive green, the color of the leather belt you used to welt my legs after I poured fingernail polish into your bathroom sink, an ill-conceived science experiment.

Grief etches its silver into our days, singing What do the living owe the dead? What tribute, what memory, what kingdom, What time, what flesh, what fiction, what will, What mourning, what missiles, what flag, What dust, what patriotism, what purging, What tears, what wick and wax and wavering Light, what vigils, what sirens, what capital, What codes, what questions, what mercy, What protest, what burning, what god, What terror, what blood, what wrath,

Lime green, the color of the bowl of sherbet punch the Christmas you decided to throw a party and I was allowed to greet all the guests in my pajamas before going off to bed. Moss green, the color of the double-breasted knit suit with matching tam you dressed me in for my first Miami Dolphins game when I was four years old. But blue the color that filled your house along with Otis Redding’s voice on the day my father told you he was getting remarried and you didn’t have to raise me anymore. All day in your darkened living room just sitting on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away.

What drafts, what suicide, what occupation, What pipelines, what desert, what hate, What brotherhood, what target, what bomb, What dignity, what sacrifices to their lingering Ghosts, what stakes to scorch the guilty, What guilt, what pleading, what prisoners, What speeches, what revolution, what marches, What jury, what freedom, what is left for us To give them, what constitution, what tower Do you wait in, O nation of martyrs, what anthem To salute you, what convoy, what genocide, What soldier, what search, what hidden silver, What hostage, what amber alert, what bare feet, What debt, what deliverance, what promises To be kept, which to be broken, what purpose, What redemption, what history, what ritual, What bridges, what answer, what love, what Love, what, living, do we owe our dead?

The Gallery JAMEL SHABAZZ Captures life’s songs American community. In 1980 as a

concerned photographer with a clear vision he embarked on a mission to

extensively document various aspects of life in New York City, from youth culture to a wide range of social

conditions. Due to its spontaneity and uniqueness, the streets and subway

system became backdrops for many of his photographs.

Shabazz says his goal is to contribute to the preservation of world history and culture. In the past 10 years he has had over two dozen solo

exhibitions; “Men of Honor”, “A Time Before Crack”, “Pieces of

a Man”, “Represent”, When Two

Worlds Meet”, “Back in the Days,”

and “Seconds of my Life,” which have been shown from Argentina to The

Netherlands, England, Italy, Germany, France, Japan and throughout the United States.

An even longer list of group

showings include Art Basel; Miami, the Brooklyn Museum, the Newark JAMEL SHABAZZ was born and raised in Brooklyn, New

York. At the age of fifteen, he picked up his first camera and started to document his peers. Inspired by photographers Leonard Freed, James Van Der Zee, and Gordon Parks,

he was marveled with their documentation of the African 40

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Museum, the Contact Photo Festival,

the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Studio Museum in

Harlem, Duke University, and the Adidas Photo Festival

in Ethiopia.

Over the years Jamel has volunteered, working with a wide

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JAMEL SHABAZZ range organizations centered on inspiring young people in the field of photography and social responsibility.

In addition, he has been a teaching artist with the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation; the Bronx Museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Teen Council youth program, The International Center of Photography, Friends of the Island Academy; and the Studio Museum in Harlemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Expanding the

Walls Project.

Adding to his community service he has lectured at

the Fashion Institute of Technology, The International Center for Photography, The Brooklyn Historic

Foundation, Haverford College and Parsons New School of Design.

Shabazz is the author of 6 monographs and has

contributed to numerous others. He is presently

working on a new book, titled The Book of Life. For information visit www.jamelshabazz.com

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Reading the Leaves “To walk” means to catch oneself from falling. I have taken to naming things. That hunk

of rock: “Norm”. My favorite elm: “Louise”. Her legs splay open and skyward. Her trunk holds a scrawl of spray paint as graciously

as it bears weight. Just past this grove, woods split in dismemberment. I recall affairs

by remembering what books I read. Fall-

ing in love brings me to words as much as any loneliness. Trees resemble books.

Books remind me of names I can give you:

dense, open-then-closed, devoured but half-

finished. I read Steinbeck, Hughes, Peck, Abbot, Orwell, and Gibran trying to read you.

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Dudley Randall and Broadside Press By Herb Boyd

“ ‘It seems to me,’ said Booker T. – ‘I don’t agree,’ said W.E.B.” In these few words, this short stanza, poet Dudley Randall succinctly captured the disagreement between these two great African American leaders. This was just one of hundreds of poems he wrote before and after becoming the Poet Laureate of Detroit. A native of Washington, D.C. Randall was born in 1914 and he was six when his family moved to Detroit. He was 13 when his first poem was published in the Detroit Free Press. Before attending Wayne State University in 1949, he worked at a number of menial jobs, including at the foundry at Ford Motor Company and served in the military during World War II. An inveterate bibliophile, he earned his master’s degree in library science in 1951 and was a librarian at several important institutions, the longest tenure was 1969 to 1976 at the University of Detroit. From being the supervisor of books to publishing them was an easy and natural evolution for Randall. He launched Broadside Press in 1965 with the publication of “Ballad of Birmingham” about the four little girls who were killed in a church bombing in 1963. The last stanza is among the saddest he ever wrote:

X it raised the bar on the memorialization of the slain leader. That stride continued in 1968 as Randall and the press commemorated the rebellion that shook Detroit; he published a collection of poems entitled Cities Burning. A partial list of the poets and writers, known and unknown, who flocked to Broadside Press now that they had a forum, a platform to express themselves without kowtowing to the mainstream press, would stretch alphabetically from Alvin Aubert to Margaret Walker with significant books in between from Nikki Giovanni, Audre Lorde, Sonia Sanchez, Etheridge Knight, Melba Joyce Boyd, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Don L. Lee (Dr. Haki Madhubuti). The prominence of Brooks and Lee/Madhubuti and their 1969 books Riot and Don’t Cry, Scream, respectively, did much to anchor the press and to attract the endless multitude of aspiring poets. Not only was Madhubuti inspired by Randall the poet, he was given a blueprint by

“She clawed through bits of glass and brick, then lifted out a shoe. ‘Oh, here’s the shoe my baby wore But baby, where are you?’” Randall printed the poem on a single “broadsheet” to protect his copyright. It also gave him the name for his press, which gathered momentum immediately after his collaboration with Margaret Danner in Poem Counterpoem. The genius was out of the bottle, so to speak, and when he and Margaret Burroughs edited For Malcolm: Poems on the Life and the Death of Malcolm 44

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Dudley Randall stands before a photo of his friend and biographer, poet Melba Joyce Boyd.

even wider wedge into an industry where Black writers had been virtually ignored. Poet Naomi Long Madgett and her Lotus Press is among the more notable companies to carry on the Broadside legacy. After he sold the press in 1977, Randall remained on as a consultant but he had additional duties and responsibilities four years later when Mayor Coleman Young named him the city’s Poet Laureate. He had a brief return to the press, but by 1985 it was owned and operated by Hilda and Don Vest who continued to add to the more than 90 titles amassed Randall’s passion for writing nurtured dreams far beyond his own. by Randall. On January 17, 2015, Don Vest died, after shepherding the enterprising entrepreneur to establish his own Third World the press through another Press. “I am the man I am today in part because of Dudley transformation. Currently, as the press prepares to celebrate Randall,” Madhubuti told a writer upon hearing of Randall’s its 50th anniversary, it will become Broadside Lotus Press, death in 2000. “I ... stayed in his house. He taught me what with Dr. Madgett at the helm. was possible. (Without Black poetry) I had about as much That Broadside and Lotus Press are one brings the muses promise as a raindrop in the desert.” together, bound inextricably in their love and devotion for A number of small, independent African American publishing books—and guaranteeing that others see their names in print. companies followed Broadside’s lead, successfully driving an

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African Voices “Of Purpose and Consequence” The legacies of W.E.B. DuBois, Amiri Baraka, Woodie King Jr. intersect through a history-making play to run in May By Bernice Green Government as “an agent of a foreign power.” Art McFarland, portrays W.E.B. DuBois, and Petronia Paley, the actress-director who collaborated with Mr. King to bring the play to the stage, plays Shirley Graham DuBois. Throughout the play, the focus moves back and forth between the Harlem community and their opinions, the witnesses’ testimonies and the courtroom battles. In this way, the audience gets a more balanced view of the interior narrative. Video stock footage of significant historical events and speeches will be integrated into the live production. Many lives were ruined during this dark period of American history; but DuBois did not define Playwright/poet Amiri Baraka with theater producer Jacqueline Jeffries, Daily Challenge columnist Joan Allen and National Black Theater CEO his life that way. One of the greatest thinkers Sade Lythcott. The late NBT founder Dr. Barbara Ann Teer smiles brightly in American and world history, DuBois was the in a background photo. Photo: Mel Wright. editor of The Crisis magazine and established Freedomways, along with Esther (Cooper), James Jackson, his second wife Shirley Graham In a rare positioning of the stars, a history-making production is DuBois, John Henrik Clarke, Dorothy Burnham, Margaret about to increase awareness of an important footnote in Black Burroughs, W. Alphaeus Hunton, among other intellectuals history and intersect the paths of three cultural and intellectual of the late 1950’s. The journal was considered the leading giants. Amiri Barakla’s last play, “Most Dangerous Man in publication (1961-1985) reflecting the tide of activism during America,” about W.E.B. DuBois and directed by Woodie King, that time in the U.S. Jr., a founder and co-chair of the New Federal Theatre, debuts at the Castillo Theatre in Manhattan on May 28, 2015. The lives of Baraka and DuBois who have transcended, and King, now a kind of caretaker of their legacies, are inextricably set against the backdrop of the harsh realities of Black people existing in America through the decades since Reconstruction. They aspired, through their work, to take folks to higher ground. They encouraged the Black community to fly higher, speak louder, fight the system to make it more just, using art as a means of revolution. “Most Dangerous Man In America” is a dramatic reflection of one of the most traumatic events in the terrible period of McCarthyism. W.E.B. DuBois, 81, a co- founder of the NAACP and a scholar and political activist known and recognized throughout the world, was indicted in 1951 by the US Federal 46

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DuBois was already a living legend when Amiri, then Leroi Jones, moved from his Newark, N.J. digs to set up a writer’s studio of sorts in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Producer-inthe-making Woodie King Jr., was engaged in setting the early stages for Detroit’s later Black theatrical scene, a successful effort that would bring him to New York City in 1964. While King and Baraka became good friends, it would be 50 years before the three would, come together, so to speak, to expand the footnote, stretch the canvas, widen the stage to reveal another story cast out of the annals of American history. DuBois and Baraka lived lives of controversy, but also of “purpose and consequence” for the good of the community. The presentation of “Most Dangerous Man in America (W.E. B. DuBois)” is a nexus for the meet-up of three men all linked by another thread: DuBois and Baraka, dared, as King now dares, to put their own spin on things.

Woodie King Jr., Alabama born and Detroit-raised, stays close to the community, discovers new talent, and cultivates the genius he finds there. He works outside of the traditional theatre experience to bring dreams to life for cast and production crew. And for his audiences he brings to the stage stories about the racial experience, but also transformative plays about the everyday Black experience far from the racial world. Cliff Frazier, board co-chair of The New Federal Theatre, once said of King, “He built a theatre that would represent an opportunity for aspiring Black actors, writers, directors, costume or scenic designers to work in a professional theatrical environment tailored to their experience.” In talking about his experience in the late 1950’s Detroit prior to arriving in New York, King told Frazier, “The creative talents endowed us with an ability to do anything. Those were magic moments. This was our theatre. We made it. We controlled it. This had never happened before. What vibrancy! What excitement! What joy! This reinforced what we could do. Many times the limitations we experience are self-imposed, because the vision is not there or because of self-doubt. Too often other people define who we are and our limitations.” Amiri Baraka, according to the biographer Arnold Rampersad, “… stands with Wheatley, Dunbar, Wright, Douglass, Hughes, Ellison and Hurston, as one of the eight figures who have significantly affected the course of African-American literary culture. His change of heart and head is testimony to his energy, honesty, and relentless search for meaning.” The scholar/journalist Herb Boyd has drawn a portrait of the “deep” similarities between Baraka and DuBois, whom he says sustained their spirit and their powers to invent throughout their lives, while “giving back and inspiring creativity in others.” Beyond their philosophies, “ these unrepentant revolutionaries (also) have common ground in their astonishing intellectual capacities; their peerless versatility in practically every literary genre; and their unwavering commitment to take on all-comers, even the pernicious and often lethal assaults by the American government. “With the ‘Most Dangerous Man in America’ two pre-eminent men of letters are finally fixed in a dramatic creation that not only illuminates a period of American history, but chronicles how resolute they stood in the face of American menace and danger.” King met Baraka in 1964, just after the playwright won the Obie for his first play “Dutchman.” He subsequently directed six of the writer’s plays, plus many other projects. King continues the journey. For more information on the month-long run, visit www. newfederaltheatre.com, call: 212-353-1176 or contact: Castillo Theatre, 543 W 42nd St, at (212) 941-1234.

Lula Had A Gun In my only photo of you eyes bulge toward a target, supple lips clenching a trigger. Grandma only knows how many rounds you stored in the barrel of your mouth. ~ No light-skinned child I take on will ever look down upon the dark earth of my skin. Twist her beauty’s arm behind closed doors, she will never forget her place— the dank stench of her deserter’s pale feet a bastard of shoebox corners. Her skin a soiled rag she can never discard like her mother’s dirty womb. ~ Your name is a door I close the limp letters of a fractured body, a dead moan in my mouth. ~ This child my sculpted wreckage, her light skin a floating chariot I will not grant safe passage. Cleave it a damaged carcass that cannot carry her. Shame her fine hair a vulture’s nest atop her ego. ~ A lineage of targets heirloomed bullet wounds on reload in our blood the gun recoiling in our DNA. In our madness we play Russian roulette in homage to you. ~ My name a wound re-opened each time mirrors look kindly upon her.

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Black Diamond (For Claudette Winfield McInnis) from Da Black Book of Linguistic Liberation

Black diamonds don’t never need no polish; they jus’ shine like a new day breakin’ over the last or like the flames of Truth incineratin’ a stack of lies. [i]’ve known pyramids, seen them in the eyes of Black girls who know that God loves ‘em ‘cause they hair is a crown of righteous wool; it consummates their head like an onyx sunrise. Ain’t never no sooty shame in the smile of a Black girl ‘cause gold knows it’s been through something to be as brilliant as it is.

Art: Aziza 48

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Black girls love like today is the final moment in time— a love that can hold all the “adams and all the eves” a love that fills our aged cups with the sweetest strawberry self-esteem a love that smothers us with a cotton comforter of quilted antiquity a love that repels the world’s white lies. Black Black Black Black Black Black Black Black

girls girls girls girls girls girls girls girls

grow grow grow grow grow grow grow grow

up up up up up up up up

to to to to to to to to

be be be be be be be be

the the the the the the the the

air in our lungs water in our bath tears in our eyes fire in our stoves prayers on our lips amen in our night pollen in our Spring hands pushing us in our back

[i] knew a little Black girl who as a woman dusted the murky mendacity of fanaticism off her Sunday dress raised herself unto the world’s cross so that [i] might be saved from its gory fangs— washed from my mind the filthy falsehood of Mammies and Jezebels and fed me Raven Madonnas who bathed in the rich bottoms of the Sunflower and the Mississippi [i]’ve known pyramids...all my life and on their walls are the images of Sable Matriarchs...for whom they were built as a testament to Earthy Ebon Mothers who continuously birth Nature’s Northern Star that navigates our way home.

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READ into it...Editor’s Picks God Bless the Child

Gathering the Waters

By Toni Morrison (Knopf, 2015)

By Keisha-Gaye Anderson

Our main character is a blue-black beauty named Bride, who, wounded by the lack of love from her lightskinned mother, tells a devastating lie. A mysterious white child named Rain and Sweetness, her prostitute mother, also people the landscape of Toni’s latest marvel.

This impressive poetry collection is a rich, lyrical and heartfelt outpouring of kinship, heritage, and a woman’s resistance and transformation within the world that envelops her. Read Anderson’s poem “The Academy” on pg. 23.

Selected Letters of Langston Hughes By Langston Hughes Ed by Arnold Rampersad, etc. (Knopf 2015)

By Paul Beatty (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux 2015)

This first comprehensive selection includes letters to family members, readers and critics as well as colleagues such as Zora Neale Hurston, Arna Bontemps, Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Alice Walker, Amiri Baraka, and Muhammad Ali.

Possibly Beatty’s most outrageous, hilarious and touching work to date, this tale of two cities is set in Dickens, California, where the titular narrator and Hominy Jenkins, the last surviving member of The Little Rascals, defend the ‘hood against wholesale gentrification.

X: A Novel

Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl

by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon (Penguin Random House Canada 2015)

A riveting, revealing and lyrical young-adult novel by Malcolm X’s daughter follows him from childhood to imprisonment at age 20, when he found faith, forged a new path and commanded a voice that resonates still.

Elysium

By Jenn Brissett (Aqueduct Press 2014) A computer program etched into the atmosphere tells of two people in a city lost to chaos. But the data’s been corrupted and they struggle to survive, sustained and challenged by the demands of love in a shattered, haunted and dangerous world.

The Sellout

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By Issa Rae (Atria 2015)

A collection of humorous essays from the creator of the smash-hit series, written in Rae’s witty and selfdeprecating voice, on what it’s like to be unabashedly awkward in a world that regards introverts as hapless misfits, and Black as cool.

James Baldwin: The Last Interview and Other Conversations (Melville House Publishing)

We are truly fortunate to sit in on these four enthralling conversations with Julius Lester, Quincy Troupe, Studs Terkel and Richard Goldstein. Baldwin’s brilliance shines in discussing race, sexuality, literature, politics and friendship.