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Kuntu
Writers Workshop
will resume on
Saturday,
May 3, 2003 12 NOON - 3:00PM
A
Report by
Frances Lee Wilson
Spokesperson,
Project Director, Newspaper Editor
Greetings
to Everyone,
The University
of Pittsburgh, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of
Africana Studies, Dr. Joseph Adjaye, Ph. D. Chair, Mrs. Timamu
Betty Penny and I take this moment to express there be the full
continuation of the Historic Kuntu Writers Workshop and
it will be under the direction of Frances Lee Wilson with
the advisory support of several members. These matters may be
discussed at future meetings. Timamu Betty Penny wishes to
relate that she is proud and thankful for your commitments and
furtherance of her husband, Rob Penny’s legacy, his work and
efforts in placing our history and heritage first in the way of
achievement and knowledge, his love of reading, writing, telling
the story for all generations to hear and bringing the heart of
Afrika into our daily lives with rejoicing, involvement and
traditions of family, work and village collective spirit.
Please, note the
Memorial Funds through the Pittsburgh Foundation and The
University of Pittsburgh, that are in place in honor of the
Phenomenal Rob Penny and please spread the powerful words of
contribution and support for these treasured causes along with
the respectful pride that we have had in the cherished privilege
of being a vital and valued part of a legendary tradition, set
in place and faithfully committed to by Rob Penny for over 27
years.
As we go forth
in his vision, we have the gift of knowing his goals and
desires and they will always be first. He had continually
expressed the 'Collective' way of collaboration, structure and
unity. In the present and future gatherings may the peace,
humility and shared striving for the Beauty of Blackness and the
Telling of Our Stories be infused with the spirit of our
mission.
We as members of
Kuntu Writers Workshop have been used to a high standard of
excellence and creativity, the spirit of Afrika and the
knowledge of our place in history and literature, as we maintain
these values we have to also maintain our giving of time,
wisdom, energy and resources to ensure the smooth flow of Rob
Penny's and August Wilson's legacy and historic institution.
There will be many new projects and programs implemented in the
ongoing development of Kuntu Writers making their distinct and
indelible mark in the various cultural and literary venues.
Kuntu
Writers Workshop will resume on
Saturday,
May 3, 2003 12 NOON - 3:00PM
E-mail: kuntuwritersworkshop@yahoo.com
Kuntu
Writers Workshop Mission Statement
1.
To bring writers together for meaningful discussion.
2.
To assist writers in getting published and or produced.
3.
To be a presenting organization.
Kuntu
Writers Workshop Vision
To
develop and celebrate Black writers and enhance cultural
enrichment in the global community.
Kuntu
Writers Workshop
Department
of Africana Studies
3T01
Wesley Posvar Hall 230 S. Bouquet St
University
of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260
412
648.7540
kuntuwritersworkshop@yahoo.com
Frances
Lee Wilson
Kuntu
Writers Workshop Director, Spokesperson, Newsletter Editor
flwilsonpoet@yahoo.com
To ensure the continuation of the
values and ideals that Rob Penny dedicated his life to, his
family and the Department of Africana Studies at the University
of Pittsburgh have established two funds in his memory: The Rob
Penny Memorial Student Assistance Fund is intended to provide
educational assistance to undergraduate students majoring in
Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. The Rob Penny
Memorial African Cultured Fund will provide awards to school
children in designated Pittsburgh Public Schools and community
Artist. All donations should be sent to the following
The Rob Penny Memorial Student
Assistance Fund
CAS
Developmnt Office
University
of Pittsburgh
926
Cathedral of Learning
Pittsburgh,
PA 15260
Attention:
Mr. James Sismour
The Rob Penny Memorial African
Centered Cultural Fund
The
Pittsburgh Foundation
One
PPG Place
30th
Floor
Pittsburgh,
Pa 15222
Rob Penny Memorial Booklet $15.00
All proceeds from the booklet will
benefit the Memorial Funds. Please make checks and Money Orders
out to the fund(s) you choose with the total number of booklets
you desire.
Send to: The Department
of Africana Studies 3T01 WWPH 230 S. Bouquet St University of
Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Please send the word for support and
contribution to everyone. Family, Friends, Organizations
-Social, Cultural, Literary and Professional.
The
rich history and mission of KWW, has not been duplicated
elsewhere in the region, is too important to set aside. The work
of this transition requires the energy and teamwork of committed
members. These facts though not new are essential. I
look forward to the cooperative spirit, the enlightening
discussions, the rivers of words
to be presented for workshopping and readings and
literary excellence in appreciation of themagnificent and loving
remembrance of the Phenomenal Rob Penny’s nurturing embrace to
guide our efforts, goals, decisions and growth.
As we together in harmony make
the transitions of change we will still keep the focus on
writing for eternity with consciousness, community involvement,
group dynamics and developing literary crafts to the point of
being presented, produced and published.
May you all have the full
embrace of peacefulness and passion within your daily lives and
the spirit of the Beauty of Rob Penny in
pursuing your vision and creating your art of words …
In Poetics and Plays
Frances Lee Wilson
Director, Newsletter Editor
Kuntu Writers Workshop
Robert Lee Penny and August Wilson, Founders 1976
Rob Penny, Coordinator 1976-2003 [In Memoriam]
‘Telling Our Stories as We Write for Eternity!’* * *
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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update 5 December
2011
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