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Home-Going
Celebration for Daughter
of
Amina and Amiri Baraka, Touches Many
By
Jamie Walker
Saturday
August 16, 2003
Newark, New Jersey--Hundreds filed their way into Metropolitan
Baptist Church at 149 Springfield Avenue in Newark, New Jersey
Saturday August 16, 2003 to pay final tributes to Shani Isis
Makeda Jones Baraka, 32, the youngest daughter of
artist-activists, Amina and Amiri Baraka, along with her
companion, Rayshon Holmes, 30.
Both women were found murdered Tuesday evening, August 12, 2003,
in the family room of Shani and her older sister, Wanda Pasha's
home in Piscataway, New Jersey. Each are reported to have
suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the head and body.
Although Middlesex County prosecutor, Bruce Kaplan, does not
consider Pasha's estranged ex-husband, James L. Coleman, a
suspect, detectives are still searching for him. Coleman, who
also goes by the name of Ibn El-Amin Pasha, had a restraining
order issued against him on April 27. In early July, he was
charged with pointing a hand-gun at Pasha's head in her home and
threatening to kill her.
Coleman, whom Pasha divorced this past February, has not been
served with either charges and has been considered a fugitive
since July, Kaplan said. Pasha, who filed a total of 12 mostly
neglected and unanswered domestic violence complaints against
Coleman, was in the West Coast at the time of her sister, Shani
and Rayshon's senseless deaths.
During funeral services held at Metropolitan Baptist Church, in
which Rev. Dr. David Jefferson, Sr. read the eulogy, Amiri
Baraka, New Jersey's most recent Poet Laureate and acknowledged
father of the historic Black Arts Movement who co-authored Confirmation:
An Anthology of African American Women (Quill 1983) with his
wife, Amina, spoke on behalf of his beloved daughter, Pasha.
"She filed twelve reports with the Piscataway police
department." Baraka repeated, "Twelve reports. How
many times do you have to say there is a crazy man out here who
is going to kill me?"
Baraka's expressed indignation aroused a resounding applause
from the filled-to-capacity Metropolitan church congregation.
His daughter's case mirrors that of many women involved in
domestic violence disputes who receive little, if any, help or
full protection under the law from the police department until
it is much too late.
"It's a sad occasion," said Teddy Harris, a collage
artist who traveled all the way from Philadelphia, PA with his
friend, Kinshasa Coghill, to attend funeral services for Shani
and to support the Baraka family. "All of this is so
unnecessary."
Harris' sentiments echo that of poet, Ted Wilson, friend of the
Baraka's, who knew Shani since she was a little girl.
"There's not enough words you can say unless you have been
in this place before," said Wilson, who was also in
attendance at Shani's home-going services. "That is, having
buried a child from a violent act." Wilson, then, quoted
from the preface of a poem he had written for Amadou Diallo, son
to activist-author, Kadiatou Diallo, who was killed in 1999
after four white New York City police officers fired a fuselage
of 41 gunshots into his 23-year old body.
"The most horrific act that one can experience is to bury a
child," Wilson said. "And for a mother to bury her
child from an act of violence is the most devastating thing in
the world."
Born to Amina and Amiri Baraka, October 23, 1971, in the middle
of what her parents might call "the torrent of struggle
that characterized the Civil Rights Movement," Shani Isis
Makeda Jones Baraka was a gifted, self-determined, talented
young Black woman who, as her older brother, Ras, notes,
"was full of life and fire."
After finishing an early education at Madison Avenue School, she
later went on to graduate from University High in Newark, New
Jersey, where she was considered "one of the brightest
stars on the girls' basketball team."
While on a four-year basketball scholarship to Johnson C. Smith,
a historically black college located in Charlotte, North
Carolina, Shani, at 5'1 (she always said 2), quickly established
a name for herself as point-guard. She impressed coaches,
teachers, and fellow peers alike with her "aggressive, but
silk smooth game," which she patterned after Isiah Thomas
who was also short. Most recently, Shani taught science and
language arts at Valisburg Middle School and was also Assistant
Coach (to Head Coach Joanne Watson) at Malcolm X Shabazz High
School, where she played an important role in helping the girls'
basketball team to bring home the gold medal this past year.
Averaging 13.8 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 11 assists, Shani, who
graduated magna cum laude from Smith, still holds the Central
Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) records for steals
and assists. In 1993, she was named CIAA Women's Co-Player of
the Year and has, to her credit, a distinguished,
"Honorable Mention" on The Eastman Kodak All America
Team.
Her companion, Rayshon Holmes, was mother to an 8-year old boy
and also a well-known, respected member of Newark's prodigious
Black community.
"Shani was the best of us all," her older brother, Ras
Baraka, an alumnus of Howard University, said in a loving,
deeply passionate, and moving speech he gave just before his
father, Amiri. "She had the most courage. And if you knew
our family, you knew she would fight first. She had more fights
than all of us put together. That's why we couldn't protect her,
because she was too busy protecting us."
Through tears, which began to stream down his cheeks, Ras asked:
"Then why is she dead? And her friend too? Why couldn't we
save her in all of our Blackness, prayers, our revolution talk,
or [healing] conferences? Why couldn't we keep her alive? How
can we shape a community and let our little sister die?"
Ras' memorable, heart-wrenching speech brought the congregation
not only to tears, but also to their feet much like his father,
Amiri Baraka, did when he delivered a gripping, prophetic
statement he'd recently written for Shani. In his statement,
which was fused with a sense of conviction and fire, Baraka
spoke out against the evils of internalized racism and
homophobia within the Black community, as well as the need for
men (who are often conditioned in society to "hate"
women that are "triply oppressed by gender, race, and
class") to "stop killing our women! Stop killing our
babies!"
Earlier in his speech, Baraka asked: "Who killed our little
Shani? I ask it for her mother, my wife, Amina, for her brothers
and sisters, her aunts and uncles, her nieces and nephews, for
the people who loved her, all the people who love our little
Shani. For gay friends and straight ones. All of us wanna' know
who killed our Shani. As little as she was, we know you didn't
have to kill her."
Baraka then concluded by speaking directly to the people, to the
Piscataway police department, and the mayor. He said: "This
is a mostly Black city. A Black Mayor. A Black Police Director.
Elected by the people of this city or appointed with great
expectations from those people. And it is your job, which you
have sworn to us to carry out. That is why I have told all these
snarling young folks and growling not so young ones to try to be
cool, though this thing has hacked to the bone, has shot us,
like Shani, directly in our hearts. The heat of the people and
City of Newark." Baraka said, "You must find this
maniac very soon. That is your job. That's what you are paid by
us, what you were elected by us, to do. But if you do not do it,
and do it soon, then people will get angry past angry. And some
of them, especially the young ones might also lose their lives
to the same killer. And if that happens I said, no one will have
to campaign against you or call you political names. If you let
the murderer of our Little Shani get away, anarchy will break
out in this Brick City of ours. And you will be cursed and
screamed at and finally pulled down!"
Poet, Sonia Sanchez, herself a leading female of the Black Arts
Movement and close friend of the Baraka family, who, in 1965,
taught one of the first Black Studies courses in the nation at
San Francisco State University, read a poem called, "A
Pavane for Shani: A Young Sister Warrior." Through tears,
Sanchez asked:
How have we come to this place with the scent of summer
bursting from her young feet
...come come come drums beating a whole life
come drums beating a new life
come life we need you as she cremates the air, folds herself
into the passion of a butterfly
Shani, Shani, Shani, my daughter. Woman sister teacher, la mujer,
de todos los pasados
woman in the fullness of time
know that nothing is ever lost. forgotten.
i see you walking on morning tiptoes
your brown eyes trailing evening stars.
Other incredible testimonies, which came from all over the world
in support of the Barakas, that were read during the
"acknowledgments" included comments from Mayor Sharpe
James; Rev. Hubert Daughtrey; Congressman Donald Payne; Ms.
Joanne Watson; Rev. Dr. William Howard, Jr.; Max Roach, Lucille
Clifton, Jayne Cortez, Ntozake Shangé, and Jose Cruz, among
others. Also in attendance were well-known authors from Shani's
generation, including Tony Medina, Kevin Powell, Ewuare Osayande,
and Asha Bandele.
Back at the Baraka house, posters of Shani adorned street and
lampposts outside, which read, "Not Just Another Short
Story" and "I Know That You All Loved Me." Just
inside the house, the sound of African drums could be heard by
three male friends of the Barakas who were in the living room,
playing. At the front door, a woman by the name of Pat stood to
greet relatives, guests, well-wishers, mourners, and other
friends, all of whom were welcomed to help themselves to a plate
a food, water, ginger ale, or a seat in the house. In the dining
room, poet, Ted Wilson, sat next to "seasoned" author,
Vertamae Grosvenor, a "cultural correspondent" for
NPR, and musician, John Hicks, who later got up to play the
wooden piano sitting in the middle of the floor. Directly across
from the piano sits a tiny altar built in memory of Shani that
is adorned with flowers, awards, sympathy cards, letters, and
pictures.
As the sound of African drums begin to pick up in pace (evoking
the spirit of Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, W.E.B. Du Bois,
and David Walker, among numerous other ancestors) and quickens
the spirit of elders, young persons, relatives, and friends
present in the Baraka home, all begin to make their way toward
the living room, where they will now gather round in a healing
circle to clap, dance, shout with joy, and help to welcome Shani
a safe passage back home. It is at this moment that Amiri and
Amina Baraka, who have been married for over 35 years and, most
recently, read their work together at "Poetry Ona
MOVE," enter the house, with their poet and sister-friend,
Sonia Sanchez, following not too far behind, along with other
members of the Baraka family, who have recently returned from
Shani's interment at Fairmont Crematory.
Noticing the irresistible sound of the African drum, as well as
the healing circle, which was already being formed in their
living room, poet-husband-father-brother-warrior-teacher, Amiri
Baraka, along with
poet-wife-mother-activist-sister-warrior-teacher, Amina Baraka,
willfully, step inside. For the ancestors were calling,
beckoning them to welcome Shani's spirit back home.
After Amiri reaches on top of his living room mantel for an 8 ˝
x 11 poster board with Shani's picture neatly pasted to it, he
then greets everyone from within the circle, raising her picture
up high to the sky, showing all who had eyes and ears free
enough to listen, a beautiful photograph of his youngest
daughter.
"Remember, Shani!" Baraka said.
And Amina was right there with him. At the funeral services
earlier, she cried while laying her weeping body across her
daughter in her casket. But now, in the living room of her own
home, something under her feet was tickling her, causing her to
move and to dance. And she did.
Those who were gathered around Amina stood by, clapping and
sometimes dancing, too, as they chanted, "Shani! Shani!
Shani!" For they, too, knew that Shani's awesome spirit
had, indeed, entered the room to dance and join them in
celebration.
After the crowd shouted, "We love you. We miss you, Shani,"
silently or out loud, Amina then, gracefully, lifted and
outstretched her hands toward the Lord, in the middle of the
healing circle. And it was clear to all who were in attendance
that Amina knew and had received the news: her baby, her
youngest daughter, Shani Isis Makeda Jones Baraka, who she had
buried only an hour ago, had finally made it. She arrived,
safely, to become one of our ancestor spirits, whose short time
spent with us here on earth is destined to touch many lives.
Jamie Walker is a freelance writer, Ph.D. student in the Dept.
of English at Howard University, and author of 101 Ways Black Women Can Learn to Love
Themselves: A Gift for Women of All Ages (Xlibris 2002). She can be
reached at www.jamiewalker.org
or via email at
jamiedwalker@yahoo.com
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updated 18 May 2008 |
