Category Archives: american history

Asante Sana, New Ancestor Sekou Sundiata

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

The Realm of the Ancestors has gained another serious artist.

Check these two samples out.

Liked this description of him and his work.

And thanks to Akila Worksongs for the obit below. It says it all.

AUGUST 27TH UPDATE: Here is Baraka’s eulogy.

———————- 

Obituary:

Gifted Poet Sekou Sundiata
(August 22, 1948 — July 18, 2007)

by Louis Reyes Rivera

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

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

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

Upon completing his Bachelor’s Degree (circa 1974), Sundiata enrolled and completed his Master’s in Creative Writing while regularly producing community-based poetry readings that were known to draw SRO crowds. In 1976, his creative sensibilities, his innate organizing skills, and his associations with a convergent generation of excellent poets, musicians and dancers immediately led to a collaborative project he directed that would commemorate 100 years of Black struggle for freedom and Human Rights. Titled The Sounds of the Memory of Many Living People (1863-1876/ 1963-1976), this production, which included upcoming novelist Arthur Flowers and such poets as Safiya Henderson-Holmes, BJ Ashanti, Tom Mitchelson, Louis Reyes Rivera, et al, was staged in Harlem over a period of two days, signaling much of what was to come from Sekou’s sense of vision, steadily breaking ground for what was then a new literary genre, Performance Poetry, fully anticipating elements of both Hip Hop Culture and Spoken Word Art.

In 1977, the aforementioned poets, along with Zizwe Ngafua, Rashidah Ismaili, Fatisha (Hutson), Sandra Maria Esteves, Akua Lezli Hope, Mervyn Taylor, and Sekou, among others, formed the Calabash Poets Workshop, which group signaled the arrival of a new literary heat in New York, regularly producing soirees and fori (1977-1983) that included all of the arts and culminated in a three-year attempt (1979-1982) to establish an independent Black Writers Union.

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

He was, as well, among those featured in the Bill Moyers’ PBS series on poetry, The Language of Life, and in Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam on HBO.

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

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

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

In addition to the 1979 Are & Be album, Sundiata’s other releases include a second album, The Sounds of the Memory of Many Living People, and two CDs, The Blue Oneness of Dreams, nominated for a Grammy Award, and longstoryshort. Each of these works are rich with the sounds of blues, funk, jazz and African and Afro-Caribbean percussion, with the latter two featuring Craig Harris.

He is survived by beloved family members, including his mother, Virginia Myrle Feaster, his wife, Maurine Knighton, daughter Myisha, stepdaughters Dina Gomez and Aida Riddle, grandson Aman, brothers William Walter Feaster, and Ronald Eugene Feaster, sister Devona, sister-in-law Nitah, a niece, Tisha Taylor, nephews William, Keith Omar and Glenn and their respective wives, Aloma, Irene and Marie, as well as a host of other relatives, admirers, students and friends.

# # #

—————

An official statement from the family of Sekou Sundiata…


The memorial service for
SEKOU SUNDIATA
will take place
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
New School University
Tischman Auditorium
64 W. 12th Street • 1st Floor
New York, NY 10011
7:00 pm

AUGUST 18 UPDATE:

A (Seemingly) Very Educated Guess About Book 7: "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows" [UPDATED WITH COMMENTS ABOUT BOOK 7]

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

I thought this is a great article on the topic. I wish I knew enough about Harry Potter to be REALLY impressed.  🙂

6:36 P.M. EST UPDATE WITH *MAJOR* SPOILERS (AND PERHAPS A LINK TO THE BOOK ITSELF): I KNOW you’ve heard about the spoilers. I’ve seen the scans of the pages, but the quality is too poor to read. Now, this separate scanning of what is, apparently, the book’s Epilogue (if/when you go there, scroll down QUICKLY to the bottom if you don’t want to read the site’s listed Book 7 spoilers) has certainly circled the globe this afternoon.

So, don’t read any further if you don’t want to know anything.

Seriously.

Don’t do it.  🙂

It might be wrong anyway, so why risk it?

Okay, here goes………..

🙂

S

*

P

*

O

*

I

*

L

*

E

*

R

*

S

AND NOW, THE ONLY POSSIBLE *SPOILER* I CARE ABOUT

 

So Ron is supposedly killed, but somehow is alive and well (and a father, no less!) in the “Nineteen Years Later” Epilogue? If true (BIG “IF”), that might be the character Rowling last year said got a “reprieve.”  So, according to what I read, the epic’s central trio is safe, and both you-know-whos are married to those other you-know-whos, all with crumb-snatchers galore. An honest-to-gosh happy ending after all for this long fairy tale—if this is true.

Hmmm……long wait until 12:01 a.m. Saturday.  🙂

JULY 23rd UPDATE: I’m one-fourth in, and Ron is safe and sound. (And yes, I did cheat and skim throughout the whole thing to make sure he was fine.) And I’m sure you know now that the “Nineteen Years Later” Epilogue was indeed the real deal. So nobody died that, say, a casual Potterite cares about. I guess it was silly to think that an author worth a billion dollars would be dumb enough to enrage her fans. 😉

JULY 30TH UPDATE: Now half-way done. Really good children’s book.

Saw on “Dateline NBC” last night that the character who Rowling saved was Mr. Weasley. Good. I like him.

"The Agronomist" Is On IFC This Month, Again

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

 

Just letting you know.

Thanks be to IFC.

Here’s what I’ve already said about the documentary film. It’s about the power of Black radio journalism, the people of Haiti, and exhibiting the complete courage for, and commitment to, those most in need.

JULY 11 UPDATE: Found a link to the entire film. Here it is.

"Let's Do The Time Warp Againnnn….."

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

 

Lemee get this straight……..

Black Southern teens get railroaded by an all-white jury after a fight with whites over a Jim Crowed tree(!)? Nooses hanging from that same tree later? A century in jail without parole?

I watched it, and only the fact that it was live and in color made me tackle my sense of denial and pin it to the ground, because I knew I had to be watching some leftover “Eyes On The Prize” footage…..

Meanwhile, the National NAACP takes significant time, ink and electrons having a funeral for the “N” word. *SIGH* 😦

The Newark Rebellion Turns 40……..

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

………….so please be on the lookout for “Revolution ’67” on your local PBS station this week.

Then, these books will help fill in the cultural and historical gaps. This series might also help.

Here’s the press release for “Rebellion ’67”:

For Immediate Release

P.O.V. Communications: 212-989-7425

Cynthia López, clopez@pov.org; Cathy Fisher, cfisher@pov.org;

Neyda Martinez, neyda@pov.org

P.O.V. online pressroom: http://www.pbs.org/pov/pressroom

P.O.V.’s “Revolution ’67” Is Riveting Account of ‘Black Urban Rebellion’ In Newark, N.J., Airing Tuesday, July 10 on PBS

Activists Amiri Baraka, Tom Hayden, George Richardson and Carol Glassman, Former Governor Brendan T. Byrne, Former Mayor Sharpe James, Journalist Bob Herbert Recall Pivotal 1967 Uprising on 40th Anniversary

A Co-production of the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and American Documentary | P.O.V. in association with WSKG.

“‘Revolution ’67’ accurately and effectively captures the mood, the pain, the loss, the ambiguity, the fear and the continuing impact of the violent unrest of the summer of 1967.” – Lonnie G. Bunch, founding director, Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture

The 1960s were in full heat. The Vietnam War, campus unrest, political assas-sinations and a defiant counter-culture were remaking the country. For African Americans, nonviolent protest was giving way to “black power” as the traditional Civil Rights Movement was seen as failing the aspirations of poor blacks in decaying urban centers.

There had been deadly “race riots” in Jersey City (1964), Harlem (1964) and Watts (1965). So when black Newark, N.J., taxi driver John Smith was stopped for a traffic violation on July 12, 1967, the rumor that he had been not only beaten, but had died, spread like a force of nature through Newark’s impoverished black neighborhoods.

As meticulously reconstructed in Revolution ’67, a new documentary on public television’s P.O.V. series, the response of Newark’s black citizens to Smith’s beating and purported death was a long time in the making. And the heavy-handed response of the police and city leaders — also long in the making — turned a spontaneous protest against police actions into a full-scale revolt. After six days, 26 people lay dead, 725 people were injured, and close to 1,500 people had been arrested.

Revolution ’67 marshals chilling archival footage and the vivid memories of a remarkable number of key players on the scene — citizens, community activists, police, National Guardsmen and the state’s future governor — to render an insider’s account of racial and economic division in an American city.

Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Newark rebellion, Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno’s Revolution ’67 has its national broadcast premiere on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 at 10 p.m. on PBS, as part of the 20th anniversary season of public television’s groundbreaking P.O.V. series. (Check local listings.)

American television’s longest-running independent documentary series, P.O.V. is public television’s premier showcase for point-of-view, nonfiction films.

To tell its tale, Revolution ’67 makes use of archival news footage from an era when portable cameras and television were making such footage more plentiful and more candid, punctuated by filmmaker Jerome Bongiorno’s bold animation to illustrate the film’s events and statistics. A musical score comprised of more than 60 jazz pieces by international artists sets the mood for Newark in the late ’60s. Most dramatically, Revolution ’67 offers an unprecedented array of eyewitness accounts of an emblematic American tragedy. The passion over events that summer in Newark remains strong among those who were on the scene.

Activist George Richardson recounts the challenges faced by black community activists in Newark prior to the riots. Controversial poet and Newark native Amiri Baraka (then known as LeRoi Jones) recalls the temper of the community and recounts being arrested for no more reason than venturing outside. Journalist Bob Herbert, now of The New York Times, remembers the shooting death of his friend Billy Furr on July 15 — for taking beer from an already-looted store to give to thirsty newsmen.

Other witnesses include then-Essex County Prosecutor Brendan T. Byrne, who later became New Jersey governor; then-UCC Area Board President Sharpe James, later Newark’s mayor; then-National Guardsman Paul Zigo; photographer Bud Lee; activists Carol Glassman and Richard Cammarieri; then-Police Officer Armando B. Fontoura, later Essex County Sheriff; journalist Ronald Smothers; and Harold Lucas, former head of the Newark Housing Authority. Historical commentary is provided by preeminent historians Kenneth T. Jackson, Clement A. Price, Nell Irvin Painter and Charles F. Cummings. Well-known ’60s activist Tom Hayden and other community organizers living in Newark were some people’s candidates for “outside agitators” behind the disturbances, but the activists were experiencing quite a different reality. In Newark in 1967, Hayden says he realized that the day of the white Civil Rights worker was over. In fact powerless to influence the black community, Hayden gave a frustrated Governor Richard Hughes the key to ending the tumult — remove the troops. When the governor did so, the disorder subsided. Historians agree that, contrary to news reports of the day, the reaction by city, state and national forces caused most, if not all, of the deaths.

The Newark riots were among the deadliest racial disturbances per capita, in recent U.S. history. The outbreak, as told by Revolution ’67, offers a “textbook” case of how endemic conditions — poverty, racial injustice, police reaction and a corrupt power structure alienated the neediest citizens and fed a cycle of resistance and destruction in poor black neighborhoods. The film is also a disturbing demonstration of how neither facts nor cool heads can stand in the way of explosive social forces once they have been set in motion.

The Newark rebellion, as many observers prefer to call it, could be seen as both predictable and predicted — despite what had happened to Smith. In fact, the taxi driver, alleged to have sideswiped a double-parked police car, had been beaten by white police and taken to the Fourth Precinct, across the street from a large public-housing project. An angry crowd gathered, believing Smith was still being abused. But Smith, accompanied by black community leaders, had left via a side door for the hospital, even as word spread out front that he had died. Community leaders could not persuade the angry crowd that Smith was alive. Nor could the crowd be stopped from assaulting the police with empty bottles and at least one Molotov cocktail — provoking an “overwhelming” response from the police.

Soon unverified alarms over black “snipers” had first police, then state troopers and National Guard troops firing into the upper stories of tenements at any real or imagined activity on rooftops. It was this type of indiscriminate gunfire that accounted for many, if not all, of the riot’s most tragic fatalities — people sitting in their own homes.

Revolution ’67 makes use of news footage, juxtaposed with the recollections of those who still argue for the existence of snipers, to discredit those arguments. Later investigation found that out of some 13,000 rounds of ammunition fired, only 100 of them were even alleged to have come from rioters rather than law enforcement, and not one of those cases was proved. Of all those arrested, not one was charged with being a sniper.

Revolution ’67 documents the social forces at work — a city government and police force that didn’t sufficiently analyze the demographic change that had made Newark a black city, and the fears of suburban and rural State Police and National Guardsmen sent into an urban civil war for which they were ill-prepared. Revolution ’67 also captures the anger and desperation of a community bitterly disappointed in continued police actions and economic injustice after years of civil rights progress.

Revolution ’67 is an illuminating account of important events too often relegated to footnotes in U.S. history and not explored in-depth in school textbooks — the black urban rebellions of the 1960s.  The days of the Newark rebellion formed a fateful milestone in America’s continuing struggles over race, economic justice and corruption, and recall lessons as hard-earned then as they are dangerous to forget
today. 

“I’m a native daughter and resident of Newark,” says director Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno, “and for as long as I can remember, Newark has been stigmatized by the riots of 1967. The questions remain: What really happened, who’s to blame, and why hasn’t the city recovered? Are the problems Newark faced in the ’60s the same that plague it today?  That’s why my husband and I made this film — to get those answers.”
 

Musical Soundtrack

In place of a traditional musical score, Revolution ’67 features more than 60 contemporary jazz tunes by 20 artists from the United States, Japan, Israel and the former Soviet Union.

Jerome Bongiorno, the film’s editor, says, “Because of Newark’s preeminent place in jazz history, one of the first decisions we made when we began editing was to use jazz music.” With recommendations from industry professionals and New York’s famed Blue Note jazz club and Berklee College of Music, Bongiorno collected material from an impressive group of talented musicians he describes as “fearless in their craft.”  “In many parts of the film, the compositions dictated the pacing of the edit,” he explains. “If I was stuck for an idea, I turned to the music as a source of inspiration.” The filmmakers anticipate Newark reclaiming its rightful spot as a jazz capital.

Revolution ’67 is a co-production of the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and American Documentary | P.O.V. in association with WSKG.
About the filmmakers:

Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno, Producer/Director, Jerome Bongiorno,
Cinematographer/Editor/Animator

Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno and Jerome Bongiorno are award-winning husband-and-wife filmmakers who formed their own production company, Bongiorno Productions, in Newark, N.J. Marylou is a producer and director; Jerome is a cinematographer, editor and animator. Marylou is a graduate of New York University’s Graduate Film Program, where she received the $75,000 Richard Vague Film Production Fund award for the feature film “Little Kings,” based on her multi-award winning short.

The Bongiornos’ documentary “Mother-Tongue: Italian American Sons & Mothers,” featuring Martin Scorsese, earned an Emmy nomination and screened at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. Their global warming-themed screenplay, “Watermark,” was featured at Sundance’s Investing in Media That Matters, the Tribeca Film Festival/Sloan Summit, and was the centerpiece of a Johnson Foundation Wingspread Conference on Global Warming and Film in 2005.

Marylou and Jerome are in preproduction for the fictional version of Revolution ’67, executive produced by Spike Lee. They are currently completing a series of short films on post-Katrina New Orleans and flood-plagued Venice, Italy, screening on PBS’ Natural Heroes series and at film festivals. The Bongiornos are the recipients of a Film Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. They are long-time residents of Newark, N.J., where Marylou has lived all her life.

Credits:

Producer/director:                    Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno

Cinematographer/editor/animator: Jerome Bongiorno

Executive Producer for P.O.V.:        Cara Mertes

Executive Producer for ITVS:         Sally Jo Fifer

Executive Producer for WSKG        Brian Frey

Running Time:                               86:46

Awards & Festivals: Newark Black Film Festival, 2006; screened as a
work-in-progress – Paul Robeson Award, Best Documentary FilmFlorida
Film Festival, 2006; screened as a work-in-progressWorld Premiere,
2007 Full Frame Documentary Film FestivalSarasota Film Festival,
2007Atlanta Film Festival, 2007

ITVS funds and presents award-winning documentaries and dramas on public television, innovative new media projects on the Web, and the PBS series Independent Lens. ITVS was established by a historic mandate of Congress to champion independently produced programs that take creative risks, spark public dialogue and serve underserved audiences. Since its inception in 1991, ITVS programs have revitalized the relationship between the public and public television. ITVS is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people. For more information, please visit http://www.itvs.org.

Produced by American Documentary, Inc. and celebrating its 20th season on PBS in 2007, the award-winning P.O.V. series is the longest-running showcase on television to feature the work of America’s best contemporary-issue independent filmmakers. Airing Tuesdays at 10 p.m., June through September, with primetime specials during the year, P.O.V. has brought more than 250 documentaries to millions nationwide, and has a Webby Award-winning online series, P.O.V.’s Borders. Since 1988, P.O.V. has pioneered the art of presentation and outreach using independent nonfiction media to build new communities in conversation about today’s most pressing social issues. More information is available at http://www.pbs.org/pov.

P.O.V. Interactive (http://www.pbs.org/pov)

P.O.V.’s award-winning Web department produces special features for every P.O.V. presentation, extending the life of P.O.V. films through filmmaker interviews, story updates, podcasts, streaming video, and community-based and educational content that involves viewers in activities and feedback. P.O.V. Interactive produces our Web-only showcase for interactive storytelling, P.O.V.’s Borders. In addition, http://www.pbs.org/pov houses Talking Back, where viewers can comment on P.O.V. programs, engage in dialogue and link to further resources.

P.O.V. Community Engagement and Education

P.O.V. provides Discussion Guides for all films as well as curriculum-based P.O.V. Lesson Plans for select films to promote the use of independent media among varied constituencies. Available free online, these original materials ensure the ongoing use of P.O.V.’s documentaries with educators, community workers, opinion leaders and general audiences. P.O.V. works closely with local PBS stations to partner with museums, libraries, schools and community-based organizations to raise awareness of the issues in P.O.V.’s films. P.O.V.’s Youth Views expands these efforts by working with youth-service organizations.

Major funding for P.O.V. is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Ford Foundation, the Educational Foundation of America, PBS and public television viewers. Funding for P.O.V.’s Diverse Voices Project is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. P.O.V. is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including KCET Los Angeles, WGBH Boston, and Thirteen/WNET New York.

TAPE REQUESTS: Please note that a broadcast version of this film is available upon request, as the film may be edited to comply with new FCC regulations.

Charles Tisdale, A Black Press Warrior, Now An Ancestor

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Asante Sana, Charles Tisdale. May the guardians of the Realm Of The Ancestors greet and salute you.

After posting, I got the following from Kalamu.

Charles Tisdale:
 Newspaper and Community Man
 

by C. Liegh McInnis

Owner, publisher, and editor of The Jackson Advocate, Charles Tisdale has made his transition to the other side. Besides being an excellent newspaper man, Tisdale’s thirty-year legacy is two-fold.  One, he used The Jackson Advocate to provide a voice to African Americans when they were poorly represented in the mainstream media. Two, he provided opportunity for most of the African American journalists in the Jackson Metro area to be published. Although my background is creative writing, my first publication was an article in The Jackson Advocate about the legislative changes in drug rehabilitation programs. Former Mississippi Link editor and journalist Nikki Burns and I used to discuss all the time that at one point most of the African American writers working at The Clarion Ledger got their starts under Tisdale.

Despite his desire to create a competitive paper, Tisdale remained steadfast to the notion that for The Jackson Advocate to be vital it must remain a community paper. For instance, no matter what many of us went on to do, he always treated us like we worked for The Advocate. Once, Tisdale and many of us were at some rally for some cause, and several of us were lingering after the event.  As I was leaving the event, Tisdale, barely acknowledging my presence, stated to me, “Have me an article about this by 5:00 p.m. tomorrow.”  To which my response was, “Yes, sir.” By the way, I missed the deadline, but Tisdale was able to get it in the paper somehow.  In fact, one of my goals as a writer was to rise to the level of Dr Jerry W. Ward and Dr. Ivory Paul Phillips who always have a column reserved in The Advocate.  To me, that is what it meant to be a real writer—to be so accomplished that you can always publish somewhere. Yet without Tisdale, Afro-Mississippi writers would not have this goal because Tisdale made sure that the paper survived bombings,attacks from other media outlets, and a lack of advertising and subscriptions. With pocket change and a prayer, Tisdale kept The Jackson Advocate alive so that the voice of the Afro-Mississippian would remain alive in all of its forms.

A complex man, Tisdale was not afraid of controversy. He called it like he saw it even if he was the only person who saw it that way. In his many editorials, Tisdale not only challenged whites whom he felt were hurting the black community, he had no problem challenging and chastising blacks, especially black elected officials whom he often placed in the Brown Society [Tisdale using his newspaper to expose Blacks to public ridicule]. Once when my father was placed in the Brown Society because he and Tisdale disagreed on a decision that my father made as Executive Director of the Hinds County Democratic Party, my father replied, “Well, at least he told me that I was going to be in the Brown Society over lunch.” For the entire time my father was in the Brown Society, Tisdale continued to publish various articles by me as well as have lunch from time to time with my father.  At his core, Tisdale was about the discourse, the discussion, the verbal/written debate.  He was an idea man who understood the importance of African Americans being able to voice their ideas, be exposed to other ideas, and make sovereign decisions about the types of ideas that governed and framed their lives.  We will miss his fire, his dedication, and his leadership for he made so many of our dreams into reality while making sure that we were represented equally and fairly.

C. Liegh McInnis is an author of seven books and a former publisher/editor of Black Magnolias Literary Journal. He can be contacted at Psychedelic Literature, 203 Lynn Lane, Clinton, MS  39056, (601) 925-1281, psychedeliclit@bellsouth.net.

Good Show, Tavis!

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At Howard University for last night's Democratic debate are, from left, Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, Bill Richardson, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel and Christopher Dodd.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Tavis kept his “product” consistent. Compared to C-SPAN, CNN, et. al., last night’s forum seemed like it occurred in an alternate Black (albeit “mainstream”) universe.

The questioners showed why journalism experience still matters. I learned a lot about the condition of Black and Brown people in America from those questions. And I loved Cornel West’s quip about the journos in today’s “Journal-isms.” 🙂

The format left a lot to be desired, but it worked for those who knew how to make it work.

I get annoyed with Tavis sometimes, but not today. Lead on, homie, and let’s see what happens at Morgan this fall.

JULY 1 UPDATE: Tavis did well on “Meet The Press” today.  Being invited to be on that political roundtable is proof that the nation’s elite has now officially recognized you.

JULY 5 UPDATE: This criticism of the event is well-thought out and needs to be read and debated. It echoes many of my own problems with Tavis’ events. I think the difference is I’ve accepted what Tavis’ self-defined role as an agent of “Black hegemony.” Until Black leaders decide to put some real money behind the creation of a Black mass media structure, there we are, then. The folks I saw in the Howard crowd—a large number of them nationally known African-American notables, leaders, etc.—were happy with Tavis’ show. And I have learned the hard way not to be angrier than my people, particularly my “leaders.”

re: Tonight's Dems Presidential Candidate Forum: Enjoyed That Tavis Said On "Democracy Now!" This Morning…….

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

 

………………that there has been more diversity in the Presidential candidate pool than in the pool of panel journos. 🙂 Until tonight. The panel of journalists is comprised of two African-Americans and a Latino.

Let’s see how tonight’s forum goes.

On Internet Radio Protest Day, Sharing A Lantern That Has Lit My Way

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

I have kept with me a yellowed Black newspaper clipping from September 11, 1989. I thought that today, the day Internet radio is conducting its “Day of Silence” protest, would be a good day to share extended excerpts of it.

————

‘Guerrilla Radio’:

Underground radio station operator uses ‘sneak attacks’ to educate community

By James Muhammad

Assistant Editor, The Final Call

SPRINGFIELD, Ill.–WTRA, “guerilla radio,” broadcasts from behind the wall.

“They say they put up the wall to protect the residents from the speeding traffic,” said Dewayne Readus, the voice and operator of the low-watt AM station, “but you notice they didn’t put sidewalks in for our children.

“The wall helps them in their control of us. They don’t want anything positive to come out of the Black community because that will disprove the myth…. that we’re dumb,” he said.

WTRA’s message comes out from the John Jay Homes housing project carried by weak radio waves but charged with the crusading spirit of its mastermind operator. The project sits in the shadow of the domed capitol building, behind the wall that blocks the blighted project from the casual glance of the speeding motorists making their way downtown.

Operating out of one of the apartments, Readus, a 30-year-old legally blind resident, is determined to educate and politicize his community, although local police attempted to silence his “Voice of the people,” as WTRA is called.

Until recently, Readus regularly operated the station from an upstairs room in his sister’s apartment. The station covered a radius of one-and-a-half miles, just enough to reach the housing unit[s…….

“When we talked about] the Urban League and the NAACP, we were alright,” said the independent contractor, “but when we started talking about police brutality, that’s when they came to shut us down.”

Readus’ controversial music and talk format had already attracted the ire of the city’s Black leadership whom he consistently criticized. He caught the attention of the police when he aired a tape recording made at the hospital bedside of a 52-year-old boxing coach who was severely beaten by security guards at a local department store.

Will Gray, an inspector with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), visited Readus after he aired coverage of a hostage incident where the police cordoned off a Black neighborhood after a man took his girlfriend and her sister hostage.

[………H]e was fined $750, which Readus has vowed not to pay until he has his day in court.

“We are saying we have a right to access the airwaves,” Readus said. “The very fact that we can’t communicate with each other is a form of genocide.”

A frequent target of Readus’ commentary, Alderman Frank McNeil, said the station provided important information to the community and a viewpoint not offered by the “run-of-the-mill” media. “But he attacked every Black person in a leadership position who didn’t agree with his position. He never allowed opposing points of view to be aired,” McNeil opined.

Today Readus operates what he calls “guerilla radio,” a “sneak attack” approach to getting his message out at varying times during the week.

“They haven’t made their move because they don’t know how to go about doing what they want to do,” Readus said, defiantly. “Ultimately, they probably just want to get rid of me. That’s their history.”

Even McNeil agreed that the relationship between Black people and the police is “very tense.”

Police Chief Mike Walton said he contacted the FCC only after he received complaints about vulgarity used on the station. He also described Readus as a “man with a small following who causes more trouble than he helps.”

However large or small Readus’ following may be, he has had an impact on the city and his community.

“He let kids and parents know what was going on in the world,” said Emmanuel Morehead, 17, who said he often listened to the station.

“I would like to see his station bigger so he can reach the broader community,” said Bill Robinson, 42. “But he’s got to make his program where people will come to him with information. He’s got to open up more.”

Readus said he welcomes the threat of arrest so WTRA’s struggle can be an example to others. The station also served as a training ground for young boys and girls interested in radio, he said.

“Somebody tell the children how WTRA served as an advocate for the people when the police wouldn’t police themselves,” Readus proclaimed. “Somebody tell the young people how we fought police brutality by broadcasting the personal testimonies of African-American victims.”

Copyright 1989, 2007 by The Final Call Newspaper Co.