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Books by Kalamu ya
Salaam
The Magic of JuJu: An Appreciation of the Black Arts
Movement /
360:
A Revolution of Black Poets
Everywhere Is Someplace Else: A Literary Anthology
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From A Bend in the River: 100 New Orleans Poets
Our Music Is No Accident /
What Is Life: Reclaiming the Black Blues Self
My Story My Song (CD)
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Books by
Langston Hughes
Weary Blues (1926) /
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
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The Ways of White Folks (Stories) /
The Big Sea: An Autobiography
A New Song (1938) /
Best of Simple /
I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey /
New Negro Poets U.S.A.
Not Without Laughter /Five Plays by Langston Hughes /
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
Ask Your Mama: Twelve Moods for Jazz /
Fine Clothes to the Jew /
The Collected Works of Langston Hughes (Poems 1921-1940)
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John Coltrane CDs:
Ascension
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Ballads
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Best of John
Coltrane /
Impressions
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My Favorite Things /
Selflessness /
A Love Supreme /
Giant Steps
Meditations
Kulu Se Mama /
Interstellar
Space /
The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions /
Stellar Regions /
Expression
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Overview
Yes, NOMMO is a workshop for Black writers. At least 75% of our
writers are female, and the majority are in late twenties to
mid-thirties. Our youngest member is Sukari Ua, she is a
16-year-old high school student.
NOMMO
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Before FST, I was
writing fiction and poetry. After FST, I wrote mostly drama,
poetry and journalism. The journalism happened because I was a
founding member of The Black Collegian Magazine in 1970. But my
point is, I was too ignorant and too maladjusted to take
advantage of a major publishing opportunity. I don’t want to
give the impression that the reason I don’t have a book with a
mainstream press is solely because of some kind of ideological
purity.
Literary
Style
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I agree with Terence
(the enslaved African writer from Roman history): there is
nothing human that is foreign to me. I can learn and use any
human cultural expression that exists; moreover, every human
expression is part of my heritage. Or, to paraphrase African
liberation leader Amilcar Cabral: we will be free only when we
are both self-determined and are able, without inferiority
complexes, to use any and all aspects of human culture that work
for us.
Borrowing & Adapting
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The creative use of
communications technology in cultural work is constant in black
culture in America. It is just that many of us are not aware of
how closely aligned the use of technology and the expressions of
our culture are. Perhaps because we seldom do anything just for
the sake of technology, and thus technology is always used to
facilitate our expression rather than to be the focus or subject
of our expression.
Langston
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Rather than simply ignore that or
reluctantly tolerate the fact that he was homosexual, I ended up
investigating the whole issue and over a period of years and
after much struggle and study around those issues, I arrived at
what I would consider a reasonably progressive, although others
might call it "radical," position on the question of
homosexuality.
You know, the more you open your eyes, the
more you see. So once I dug Baldwin and tried to understand
where he was coming from, then I began to see homosexuality
throughout our community. Also, by then I was into the blues
aesthetic (see my essay on that in What
Is Life?), and
homosexuality was generally accepted as part of life in those
circles. Malcolm,
My Son
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Table
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If by
rap/hip-hop approach one means an emphasis on performance, BAM
did indeed influence rap and hip-hop. However, I think it is a
mistake to ascribe that quality to BAM rather than to understand
that performance is a hallmark of black cultural expression in
general rather than an attribute of BAM exclusively. I’m sure
that there have been some influences [on my writing]. However, I
think the hip-hop influences are minimal mainly because I have
been so consciously opposed to the commercialization of my work.
In fact, rap itself, as we know it today, is nothing but a
commercialization of hip-hop. Also, because I am so firmly
embedded in a blues aesthetic and a jazz aesthetic. I listen to
hip hop, I can hear it, but, hey, Shaq can dribble a ball but
he’s not trying to be a point guard.
More
on Music Influences
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I follow
Langston Hughes, simply "dig and be dug in return." I believe,
dig what you can dig, and leave alone what you can't. Don't fake
the funk. If you dig it, do it. If you don't, regardless of what
others might say or what experts say you are supposed to dig, if
you don't dig it, leave it be. Move on and do something you do
dig. Life is too short to spend time following the dictates of
others.
Travel Writing
Neither "buying" nor "voting" is going to free us or
empower us. Indeed, it was the struggle for power that won us the
opportunity to spend our money in public places and to exercise the
right to vote as citizens of America. Struggle gave us "buy" and "vote."
Being Black
If you
have a specific position that Yusef takes that you want me to
comment on, I will do that. But even when I might strongly
disagree with his position, I still embrace him as my brother
and salute him as fellow poet and, to be clear, this is not
about Yusef per se. Embracement, diversity, those are my
philosophical positions in general with everyone. Of course,
this is not a blind embracement nor a valueless espousal of
diversity. My embracement of my enemies is struggle. My
acceptance of diversity does not mean giving way to evil, to
that which is anti-life. I will speak out against whatever I
consider wrong.
What Is Life?
Two weeks ago, I walked into a small
restaurant and bar in inner city New Orleans. I was there to buy
a catfish plate. While waiting for my order, the brother sitting
at the bar next to me called my name. We struck up a
conversation. He remembers me from the seventies. He is a
welder. He studies African cultures. Sema Swahili (speaks
Swahili) to me. Drops a Hausa phrase on me. If you saw him, the
last thing you would think is intellectual. His speech is not
proper nor laced with big words, but he is an organic,
working-class intellectual. He tells the waitress that I am a
great writer, and encourages me to keep writing.
Cultural & Political Work
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Audio:
My Story, My Song (Featuring blues guitarist Walter Wolfman Washington)
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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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Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and
the Education of a President
By
Ron Suskind
A new
book offering an insider's account of the
White House's response to the financial
crisis says that U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim
Geithner ignored an order from President
Barack Obama calling for reconstruction of
major banks. According to Pulitzer
Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, the
incident is just one of several in which
Obama struggled with a divided group of
advisers, some of whom he didn't initially
consider for their high-profile roles.
Suskind interviewed more than 200 people,
including Obama, Geithner and other top
officials . . . The book states Geithner and
the Treasury Department ignored a March 2009
order to consider dissolving banking giant
Citigroup while continuing stress tests on
banks, which were burdened with toxic
mortgage assets. . . .Suskind states that
Obama accepts the blame for mismanagement in
his administration while noting that
restructuring the financial system was
complicated and could have resulted in
deeper financial harm. . . . In a February
2011 interview with Suskind, Obama
acknowledges another ongoing criticism—that
he is too focused on policy and not on
telling a larger story, one the public could
relate to. Obama is quoted as saying he was
elected in part because "he had connected
our current predicaments with the broader
arc of American history," but that such a
"narrative thread" had been lost.—Gopusa
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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updated 5 November 2007 / update
4 February 2012
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