More Sharon Terry Kwanzza Items...

Redefining Black Power: Reflections on the State of Black America

from http://www.kpfk.org/eventcal.html?task=view_detail&agid=2405&year=2012&month=02&day=02

Eso Won Books

4331 Degnan Blvd., Leimert Park

L.A., CA 90008

(323) 290-1048 

The Pacifica Radio Archives' first book project, out February 15th, 2012. Join the conversation on the African American experience during the Obama presidency on Thursday February 2nd at Eso Won Books in Los Angeles.


Guests:
Dr. Shani Byard Ed.D, Exective Director of Message Media Ed., School of Black Leadership in the Digital Age
Chris J. Hickey, Executive Director, Each One, Teach One


For more details go to www.redefiningblackpower.com


Barack Obama made history in 2008 when he became the nation's first African American president. His victory stood on the shoulders of black freedom fighters throughout history, but what has his presence meant for black America as we march towards the 2012 presidential election?


In its first book project, the Pacifica Radio Archives has teamed up with City Lights Books to produce Redefining Black Power: Reflections on the State of Black America. With contributions from Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow), Van Jones (former White House Green advisor and President of 'Rebuild The Dream') and Dr Vincent Harding (founder of Veterans of Hope and script writer for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ), Redefining Black Power addresses some of the key issues for black america; mass incarceration, media portrayal, the role of black leadership, democratic participation and economic disparity.


Location: 4331 Degnan Blvd., Leimert Park, L.A., CA 90008 
Contact: Joanne Griffith / connect@redefiningblackpower.com

Sankofa

"Sankofa" means don't be afraid to go back and get what you don't remember...For Kwanzaa and year around...from Spirit Dance Adornments http://spiritdanceadornments.blogspot.com. Take a look at some of the other Adinkra inspired "Talking Adornments."

Sankofa

In this image the camera's light setting wasn't quite right, but the I'm including it because it best captures the sun lighting up the carnelian. The entire piece is made up of a carnelian ----- and a carnelian briolette from Turquoise Magpie, suspended from a brass frame. My client is going to hang it in her window. I call this piece Sankofa. It will make a gorgeous window and room display.

In the Adinkra African writing system of the Akan people of Ghanaand Corte ‘d Ivorie there is for me one symbol that recognize more than any other that life is transformational. That symbol isSankofa.

Of all of the intrepretaions I found regarding the concept of Sankofa, this text from W.E.B. DuBois Learning Center has resonance for me:

"se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenki."

"it is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot".

The Akan Symbol Project at Marshal University

expands on the ideas of memory and knowledge with the following;

The Akan believes that knowledge must have practical bearing on the conduct of life. This is portrayed by the aphorism: 

Nyansa nye sika na woakyekyere asie - 

Wisdom is not like money which may be kept in a safe; 

or,

". . .one does not collect wisdom in a bag,
lock it up in a box
and then go to say to a friend,

"teach me something."

This secondSankofa piece is a pendant

of onyx and copper.

The idea I'm trying to work on is --our futures are not shackled by our past but given flight by knowledge of the past. Because the symbol is interpreted as two birds

or one bird flying in two directions

or a bird and an egg.

I see the concept of Sankofa as speaking to the multiple identities we wear, the multiple paths we can and do choose to travel and as a result the multiple possibilities we have when we allow ourselves to hear and see the past and the future from the position we exist in today.

Here are a few more images I’ve used to inform my work with wire and gemstones. I love the stylization of these image.

Wear a piece of history...Africancowboys on T-shirts, mugs and mouse pads

Featuring the historical documentary paintings of Emerson Terry


Browse other personalized gifts from Zazzle.

African Cowboys On-line history and pictorial documentation

http://www.africancowboys.net

The link above will take you to more of Emerson Terry's work. He has spent almost 40 years reaching and painting on the subject of Diasporaic Africans in the old west of the United States and Africa.

Roots&Culture International Marketplace: Know Yourself

Roots&Culture International Marketplace: Know Yourself

Roots&Culture International Marketplace: Know Yourself