Aduku Addae Bio

Aduku Addae, born in 1959, is a Jamaican by birth and an internationalist freedom fighter by choice and conviction. 

As a young boy he roamed the hills of his rural village, Bohemia, located at the southwestern tip of the "Garden Parish," St. Ann, dreaming about Maroons (the reputed ancestors of his paternal grandmother) and fighting many shadow (imaginary) battles against the British Army of colonial times. 

The ultimate "mental assassin" in his daydreams he never lost a single conflict to the enemy, the "Red Coats." This childhood past-time transmuted into 'manful' vocation. The fire of resistance burns fiercely and unremittingly in his gut. His writings bear evidence of this.

Addae's education commenced at home in a tight-nit peasant family and continued through his attendance at both Bohemia and Moravia Primary schools.  He entered high school in 1971 on a "full place scholarship" and gained some enlightenment at Knox College (a school run by the Presbyterian Church) graduating in 1976. After a wonderful year of "ital livity" in the hills of St. Ann he picked up his studies in 1978 at the College of Arts, Science and Technology (C.A.S.T.), recently renamed University of Technology. He departed the campus of this Kingston institution in 1981, at the height of his studies, to take up family rearing and agriculture.

He published a "roots" Jamaican entertainment magazine called "Cooling Out" from 1989 to 1992.  The publication featured many renowned reggae artists, some at the very inception of their careers. He briefly managed/edited a grass-roots publication in San Diego called "The Talking Drum." 

Addae currently resides in the outskirts of San Diego, California, where he writes, poetically and journalistically, for self-clarification and in an earnest effort to light the pathways in the Pan African and working class struggles. His poetry carries the fire of a righteous rage, and the flavor and vital "heartbeat vibration" of his Jamaican Culture. He is the original host and originator of "Expressions Unlimited," a literary forum which features local authors and poets. At present, Addae is organizing The Diamond Literary Festival to be held in San Diego in May 2004.

Contact: Aduku Addae, P.O. Box 120411, San Diego, CA 92112;  Adukuaddae@aol.com

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Ancient African Nations

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The Slave Ship By Marcus Rediker In this groundbreaking work, historian and scholar Rediker considers the relationships between the slave ship captain and his crew, between the sailors and the slaves, and among the captives themselves as they endured the violent, terror-filled and often deadly journey between the coasts of Africa and America. While he makes fresh use of those who left their mark in written records (Olaudah Equiano, James Field Stanfield, John Newton), Rediker is remarkably attentive to the experiences of the enslaved women, from whom we have no written accounts, and of the common seaman, who he says was a victim of the slave trade . . . and a victimizer. Regarding these vessels as a strange and potent combination of war machine, mobile prison, and factory, Rediker expands the scholarship on how the ships not only delivered millions of people to slavery, [but] prepared them for it. He engages readers in maritime detail (how ships were made, how crews were fed) and renders the archival (letters, logs and legal hearings) accessible. Painful as this powerful book often is, Rediker does not lose sight of the humanity of even the most egregious participants, from African traders to English merchants.— Publishers Weekly

Marcus Rediker is professor of maritime history at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (1987), The Many-Headed Hydra (2000), and Villains of All Nations (2005), books that explore seafaring, piracy, and the origins of globalization. In The Slave Ship, Rediker combines exhaustive research with an astute and highly readable synthesis of the material, balancing documentary snapshots with an ear for gripping narrative. Critics compare the impact of Rediker’s history, unique for its ship-deck perspective, to similarly compelling fictional accounts of slavery in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Charles Johnson’s Middle Passage. Even scholars who have written on the subject defer to Rediker’s vast knowledge of the subject. Bottom line: The Slave Ship  is sure to become a classic of its subject.—Bookmarks Magazine  

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Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues                                                          By Ida Cox I hear these women raving 'bout their monkey men About their fighting husbands and their no good friends These poor women sit around all day and moan Wondering why their wandering papas don't come home But wild women don't worry, wild women don't have the blues. Now when you've got a man, don't ever be on the square 'Cause if you do he'll have a woman everywhere I never was known to treat no one man right I keep 'em working hard both day and night because wild women don't worry, wild women don't have no blues. I've got a disposition and a way of my own When my man starts kicking I let him find another home I get full of good liquor, walk the streets all night Go home and put my man out if he don't act right Wild women don't worry, wild women don't have no blues You never get nothing by being an angel child You better change your ways and get real wild I wanna tell you something, I wouldn't tell you no lie Wild women are the only kind that ever get by Wild women don't worry, wild women don't have no blues.  Born Ida Prather,25 February 1896 in Toccoa, Habersham County, Georgia, United States. Died 10 November 1967 (aged 71) Genres Jazz, Blues Instruments Vocalist.

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Guarding the Flame of Life / Strange Fruit Lynching Report

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The State of African Education (April 200)

Attack On Africans Writing Their Own History Part 1 of 7

Dr Asa Hilliard III speaks on the assault of academia on Africans writing and accounting for their own history.

Dr Hilliard is A teacher, psychologist, and historian.

Part 2 of 7  /  Part 3 of 7  / Part 4 of 7  / Part 5 of 7 / Part 6 of 7  /  Part 7 of 7

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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan  /  The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll  /  Only a Pawn in Their Game

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for Slavery

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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg

The Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804  / January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of Haiti 

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John Henrik Clarke—A Great and Mighty Walk This video chronicles the life and times of the noted African-American historian, scholar and Pan-African activist John Henrik Clarke (1915-1998). Both a biography of Clarke himself and an overview of 5,000 years of African history, the film offers a provocative look at the past through the eyes of a leading proponent of an Afrocentric view of history. From ancient Egypt and Africa’s other great empires, Clarke moves through Mediterranean borrowings, the Atlantic slave trade, European colonization, the development of the Pan-African movement, and present-day African-American history.

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BLACK CLASSIC BOOKS   BCP Digital Printing

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updated 11 June 2008