Video:

French soul singer

Ben L'Oncle Soul

- "Elle me dit"

French singer Ben L'Oncle Soul just released his video "Elle me dit". The soulful video is part of his album Ben l'Oncle Soul.

Benjamin Duterde (born 1984), a.k.a. Ben L’Oncle Soul (‘Ben the Soul Uncle’), is a French nu-soul singer from the town of Tours.

Duterde first gained prominence in his home country with the Soul Wash EP (2009), which featured six covers of songs by Gnarls Barkley, Spice Girls, Katy Perry and, most notably, The White Stripes (Seven Nation Army).

Ben’s first full-length album, entitled simply Ben L’Oncle Soul was released in the summer of 2010 and was put out internationally on the Motown label.

 

CFP: “Dread, Ghost, Specter, and Possession”

 For who can wonder that man should feel a vague belief in tales of disembodied spirits wandering through those places which they once dearly affected, when he himself, scarcely less separated from his old world than they, is for ever lingering upon past emotions and bygone times, and hovering, the ghost of his former self, about the places and people that warmed his heart of old? (Charles Dickens: Master Humphrey's Clock)

In our third issue of manycinemas we are turning our attention to the unexplainable and the supernatural. We are looking for academic essays on films in which we get in touch with “Dread, Ghost, Specter, and Possession.” We are interested in cinematic aesthetics of films which show these phenomena out of the view of different cultural backgrounds. Like in the other issues these should be films from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Dread – cinema is a modern tale. The monsters of childhood/past come alive and haunt the protagonists on the screen, (substitutional for the viewer?). How do they meet their fears? How does the film show the fear? And, is there any escape?

Ghost – what kind of ghosts are manifested in non-western cinema? How do they haunt, or do they do such things at all?

Specter - dreams, visions, how does film show these things, from where do they come from, and what kind of meaning they have?

Possession – how is a character going to be possessed by something/someone. And how is the behavior of the possessed?

There are many movies all over the world which show one of these phenomena. We are looking for essays which analyzes films on one, two, or more of the issue's topics. We are interested in:  

• the cultural anchors and meaning of supernatural phenomena

• appearance of ghosts, specters, etc.

• the role of ghosts/ specters in movies (good or evil)

• dread and religion

• raising the dead

• juju films, yokai movies, etc.

• and much more

We are also looking for our rubric Beyond the Screen for an essay on this topic which is loosely connected to film like theater, music, dance, performance, visual culture, comic...

Please send us your proposal (300-500 words) with the titles of films you will include and a brief CV until 15th August 2011. Do not hesitate to mail us, if you have some questions.

The later articles should have a length of 3000 to 5000 words. For styleguide: look here  http://www.manycinemas.org/styleguide.html

Please send your proposal to

Helen Staufer and Michael Christopher

manycinemas [at] anpa.de     or editors [at] manycinemas.org

Manycinemas 01: urban/rural is now online. Please have a look: www.manycinemas.de

Call for Papers for Edited Volume:

Women Writers Across Boundaries

Deadline: 21 August 2011

After the success of our book Women on Women; we are looking for quality papers on women writers across boundaries of nation/state/age/class. Suggested Topics:

• Women and sexuality
• Women and Queer desire
• Lesbian Studies
• Women and nation
• women and change
• Women and Sensuality
• Women and religion

Please send a 150-200 word abstract along with a brief bio to asha.choubey@gmail.com by 21 August 2011. Full papers shall be expected by 30 December 2011.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: asha.choubey@gmail.com

For submissions: asha.choubey@gmail.com

Website: read about the book Women on Women here

 

Paying market, Beastly Babes (Cleis Press),

payment: $50 per story (worldwide)

Deadline: 29 July 2011

Beastly Babes is open to all authors. Editor Delilah Devlin is looking for lesbian shapeshifter stories for a romantic er0tica anthology entitled Beastly Babes. The concept of shapeshifters—beings both human and animal—ignites our imaginations with visions of primal passions and insatiable hungers. Most commonly seen as dark, masculine demons, shapeshifters are in need of a metaphysical overhaul—a new feminine/Sapphic blending of physical power and inescapable desires.

Beastly Babes will re-envision common and not-so-common myths and deliver a fresh perspective from the storytellers. Traditional lycanthropes and feline familiars are welcome, if told with a fresh twist, but writers are encouraged to imagine greater, and perhaps explore more obscure, lesser-known mythologies from around the world to create inventive tales celebrating feminine power, lust, and er0tic love. Concentration primarily focuses on the lesbian relationship, although ménage and secondary m/f depictions will be permitted. Published authors with an established shapeshifter world may use that setting for their original short story.

The stories may be as kinky or vanilla as the writer wants—but a deep s3nsuality should linger in every word. Ex0tic locations and scenarios are welcome. Keep in mind there must be a romantic element with a happy-for-now or happy-ever-after ending. Strong plots, engaging characters and unique twists are the ultimate goal. Please no reprints. We are seeking original stories.

How to submit: Prepare your 1,500 to 4,500 words story in a double-spaced, Arial, 12 point, black font Word document with pages numbered (.doc, NOT.docx) OR rich text format. Indent the first line of each paragraph half an inch and double space (regular double spacing, do not add extra lines between paragraphs or do any other irregular spacing). US grammar (double quotation marks around dialogue, etc.) is required.

In your document at the top left of th epage, include your legal name (and pseudonym if applicable), mailing address, and 50 word or less bio in the third person to cleisbeastlybabe@gmail.com. If you are using a pseudonym, please provide your real name and pseudonym and make it clear which one you’d like to be credited as. Authors may submit up to 2 stories. Delilah will respond to you in October 2011. The publisher has final approval over the manuscript.

Payment will be $50.00 USD and two copies of the published book upon publication.

Direct any questions you have regarding your story or the submission process to Delilah at cleisbeastlybabe@gmail.com.

NOTE: If I receive the submission early enough and like it but it’s not quite right, there may be a chance to revise and resubmit. The key is to get the story in early!! DD

Publisher: Cleis Press

Contact Information:

For inquiries: cleisbeastlybabe@gmail.com

For submissions: cleisbeastlybabe@gmail.com

Website: http://www.cleispress.com

 

Video:

Meet black Italian writer

Igiaba Scego

 

In an interview Afro-Italian writer Igiaba Scego talks about identity, language and why it is important to talk about the African diaspora. Scego was born in Rome to Somali parents. The interview is subtitled in English.

One of the basic themes of Igiaba Scego's highly autobiographical work is her double identity as both Somalian and Italian – a relatively new topic in Italy, which has only recently become a destination for immigrants.

Writing about this theme also has political significance for her. In Italy, the children of immigrants have no guarantee of achieving Italian citizenship, making them foreigners in their own country or, as Igiaba Scego so pointedly phrases it, Italians with residence permits.

Bio
Igiaba Scego was born in 1974 in Rome. Her parents left Somalia and came to Italy after Siad Barre's military junta took over. In 1980s Rome it was not uncommon for the family to experience discrimination.

Scego's father had been a well known politician in Somalia and had held posts such as ambassador and foreign minister. With the coup, the family lost their possessions, positions and connections. Thus Igiaba Scego grew up between a mythical past in which the Scego family was important and well regarded, and the deprivation of the present.

She inherited a love of stories from her parents. She devoured books and says herself that literature saved her life: »For me, as the daughter of immigrants who found themselves in a sea of uncertainty, reading was a life preserver. I found my history, myself and, most importantly, Africa in books.« After high school, she studied Literature and Education and then began to publish her own texts.

Her narrative »Salsiccia« was awarded the Premio Exs&tra in 2003. Read the full story here.

Igiaba Scego also played in the Italian film "La pecora nera" (2010).

See the very musical book trailer of her new book "La mia casa è dove sono" (Rizzoli, 2010)

 

 

 

Sudan:

The Women Who Clear

Sudan's Mines

 

Mary Opani, women team leader/ Photo: Jahle Auset

Leah Young gives a more in-depth look--more in depth than these IRIN and BBC articles--about an all women demining team in South Sudan and what women from rural communities uniquely bring to mine-action efforts:

NPA has found that in these war-torn communities it is typically women who are involved in gathering wood and water for their families in more remote locations. Due to their knowledge of these lesser-known areas, women have the most information in these rural communities regarding which areas are the most dangerous. These women, however, are typically an untapped resource of knowledge, since all-male teams go into these areas and speak mainly to the men from the communities about their knowledge of the mine threat in the area. Perhaps this all-women team will be able to speak to more women, accessing vital information that has not been found in the past.

(Women deminers in Laos and Cambodia)

 

__________________________

The women who clear Sudan's minefields

In baking heat, the women wear bomb-proof clothing and cannot drink water By Peter Martell  BBC News, Bungu Jamba Besta had planned to be a secretary, hoping to find work in an office as her homeland of South Sudan emerged out of a 22-year long civil war. Instead, the pregnant mother heads an all-female team of de-miners, removing dangerous explosives from former battlefields. "I never thought I would be doing this," says Ms Besta, welcoming her six-woman team back from the danger zone they are clearing.  Many people have died or had their legs shot off because of a mine  Tabu Monica Festo Mine clearer "But it shows those people who think that women can't do jobs like this that they are wrong." The team's members say they work better as an all-women team - supporting each other against often critical comments that de-mining is work only for a man. "We live and work away from home all as one team, so it is good we are all women together," she says. Sudan's north-south war - fought over ideology, religion, ethnicity and oil - ended more than four years ago. Some two million people died in the war, and its bitter legacy of landmines and unexploded ordnance continues to kill and wound. Warning signs In Bungu, where Jama and her Sudanese team working for Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) are clearing mines, the community want to rebuild a school abandoned during the war.  The women do a great job - and we don't have problems of fighting or drinking  Kjell Ivar Breili Norwegian People's Aid The small settlement, some 30 miles from the southern capital Juba, was a northern government outpost on a key rebel supply line from neighbouring Uganda. Soldiers ringed the outpost with mines against the surrounding southern guerrilla forces, while unexploded ordnance is left from the battles between the two sides. "It will take a long time to clear," says de-miner Tabu Monica Festo, waving at the waist high grass and tangled bushes. "We don't know where there may be something hidden." Only a narrow passage has so far been cleared through the ruins of the old school, a jumbled pile of rocks covered in thick shrubs. The path is clearly marked with warning sticks tipped with red, to show the rest remains unsafe. "We have to be very careful to check all the ground is clear," Ms Festo added, resuming her slow sweeping of the ground with a metal detector. A solid squeaking sound indicates hidden metal - and the risk of a mine or unexploded bomb. Some were designed to maim people, others to take out an armoured tank. "It's a job that is important to do - many people have died or had their legs shot off because of a mine," Ms Festo adds. Painstaking work Similar all-women teams work elsewhere in the world, including Kosovo and Cambodia. Mine clearance is arduous and the teams must be alert for booby traps But Kjell Ivar Breili, NPA's programme manager, says this is the first such team to be used in Sudan. Mr Breili said NPA's two female teams have recently beaten several of the six male teams in terms of the numbers of mines cleared. "The women do a great job - and we don't have problems of fighting or drinking," he said. Each de-miner creeps painstakingly forward down thin alleys, moving the safety line forward only once every section has been checked. It is tough work in baking sun, and the plastic face-shields they wear inside the minefield mean that it is not possible to drink water during each 45-minute shift. However, the women must pour water on to the hard-baked soil to soften the earth and allow the gentle probing of suspect objects. Critics 'are jealous' One cleared passage stops just short of a tall mango tree, whose cool shade looks an inviting place to rest. Their children sometimes join the women during breaks But the women say such spots are especially risky - booby-trapped simply because they are likely places for people to go. "The soldiers are believed to have buried mines all around here," said Fazia Annet, dressed in a heavy protective bomb blast jacket. "But we have to check all the ground of course, because there could be danger anywhere." Later, in the tent-camp a short distance outside the minefield, the women eat lunch before relaxing for a break in the shade. One mother plays with their daughter, who is looked after in the camp while the women are at work. But the team leader, currently assigned to logistical duties during the later stages of her pregnancy and for the following nine months, is clear that women can do the job just as well as men. "Some say it is dangerous for a woman, but they are jealous because we are doing the same job as the men," said Ms Besta, with a laugh. "What is dangerous is leaving mines hidden in the ground."

__________________________   SUDAN: Demining not just a man's job Photo: Severine Flores/IRIN A deminer at work in a field in Bongo, near Juba. Female deminers are perceived to be more accurate and reliable than their male counterparts JUBA, 23 June 2009 (IRIN) - The whistle signalling the end of the morning shift had just sounded when six deminers emerged from the tall grass, took off their protective clothing and walked back to the rest camp for lunch.  "I never thought I would end up as a deminer," Jamba Besta, the team leader, said. "All I wanted was to become a secretary, I even took the qualification, but when [this] offer came up, I took it."  Like Besta, all the deminers are women. They work in Bongo, a small community on the road from Juba to Yei in Southern Sudan, for the international NGO Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) Mine Action.  Besta's all-female demining team is a first for Sudan, although successful examples are found in Kosovo and Cambodia. Despite some abuse, especially from drunken soldiers passing by, the team's reputation has inspired commercial contractors to follow suit.  "They [the drunken soldiers] insult us," Besta said. "They laugh at us and say that women cannot remove landmines. But ladies can do just as well as men if they are trained."  The role of the women in demining has been championed by the UN Mine Action Office (UNMAO). "Female deminers work really well," Johann Maree, UNMAO operations officer in Yei, said. "They are constant and reliable."  Women deminers have proved more effective than men, according to NPA officials: "Women are very accurate and organized," said Kjell Ivar Breili, NPA programme manager. "They don’t get drunk as the men often do... Over the past two years, they are the teams that have found the most mines."  Photo: Severine Flores/IRIN  Jamba Besta, NPA’s all-female deminers’ team leader A necessary activity  Demining is a necessary activity in Sudan where more than 20 years of conflict left 19 out of the 25 states affected by mines or explosive remnants of war (ERW).  ERW include unexploded ordnance - such as bombs, mortars, grenades, missiles, cluster munitions or other devices that fail to detonate on impact but remain volatile and can kill if touched or moved - and "abandoned ordnance" or weapons left behind by armed forces when they leave an area.  Men risk death or injury when working in the fields, and women are in danger when collecting firewood or carrying water.  According to UNMAO, the true extent of Sudan’s mine and ERW problem is unknown, but since 2002, UNMAO and its partners have had some success: They have opened up more than 29,000km of roads, cleared 45 million square metres of land, and destroyed over 16,000 anti-personnel and anti-tank mines as well as 800,000 ERW.  Despite this, mines and ERW continue to maim and kill people in various parts of Sudan and obstruct the delivery of humanitarian aid. They also hinder the return of refugees and displaced people and slow down reconstruction, development and peace building.  Photo: Severine Flores/IRIN  One of the female deminers takes a break. Deminers earn between $250-$400 per month, receive free medical treatment, insurance, paid annual leave and maternity cover Maternity provision  The job with NPA brings in US$250-$400 per month, and it is a stable, regular income.  The women also get three months’ maternity leave, after which they are relocated for nine months at the administration camp in Yei, where they work on other tasks and receive training while being able to breastfeed at regular intervals, until they are ready to go back to the minefield.  "As long as you’ve got proper training and you take precautions, demining is not more dangerous than any other job," Breilli said. "I think it is far more dangerous for women to go out in a contaminated field and collect firewood."  According to the NPA, some of the women in its programme are inspired to work hard because they have families or relatives in the villages where clearance is being done.  "I want to help rid [this] area of landmines," Besta, who is six months pregnant, said. "I like the fact that I can help [my people] feel safer."  sf/eo/cb Theme (s): Conflict, Environment, [This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] >via: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=84952

__________________________

NPA’s All-female

Demining Team in Sudan

by Leah Young [ Mine Action Information Center ]

Norwegian People’s Aid’s commitment to gender mainstreaming in mine action is reflected by the organization’s present work in Sudan. This article looks at the successes of the country’s first all-female demining team, established in 2007, as well as at the larger cultural and practical considerations of women in demining.

Norwegian People’s Aid has always held the opinion that women should have equal employment rights to all jobs—including those in every aspect of demining.¹ It has demonstrated this belief by involving women in many of its demining projects around the world. Past NPA projects that incorporated women in the demining process include clearance projects in Bosnia, Croatia, Iraq, Kosovo and Sri Lanka, all of which were successful. The positive feedback concerning female participation in these projects encouraged NPA to continue training women to take part in demining—even in its most recent project in war-torn southern Sudan.¹

Female deminer at Limbe Bridge task, Lainya, Central Equatoria.
Photo courtesy of Jahle Auset

Mary Opani, team leader. 
Photo courtesy of Jahle Auset

Female Demining in Sudan

NPA has been involved in mine clearance in Sudan since April 2004, when it established its first program in the nation, a traditional all-male team. Soon after, however, in 2005, training for the first female deminers in Sudan began, leading to the formation of the first all-female demining team in the country, which officially came together in 2007.¹ The government of South Sudan is working on gender mainstreaming within its employment ranks, setting a target of having females serve as 25 percent of its agencies’ workforce. NPA’s mine-action programs in Sudan aimed for this gender-mainstreaming goal and made the 25-percent target a reality, assimilating women into every part of demining operations, including the operational and support departments.¹

NPA did not take any special measures to recruit the women it trained. The recruitment of female staff was conducted within Yei County, Central Equatoria, where advertisements were posted around the town area. Applicants were interviewed and then screened by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army for security purposes. After that, successful candidates began a four-week basic demining course.¹

Many advantages exist in facilitating all-female demining teams. First, avoiding mixed-gender teams addresses the practical concerns of deminers living together in a small working environment. Second, all-female demining teams ensure a “gender balance” within NPA’s demining programs, providing not only equal employment opportunities to the women, but also bringing female perspectives to the traditionally male-dominated field. All-women teams also create unique positions in local communities for women to be role models for others.¹ NPA has not observed any drawbacks or weaknesses in these teams. Although the female teams may require slight increases in donor funding, to assist with the expenses associated with maternity leave, NPA says that donors “have responded very well.”¹

The women of South Sudan. The culture of South Sudan is known for its conservative nature. Initially, this emphasis on tradition was seen as a potential cultural hindrance as the first all-female demining team was formed and women began to take on roles traditionally viewed as masculine.² This traditional culture, however, has not been a deterrent to the process. The majority of the female deminers say that their involvement has not been discouraged, but rather that their friends and families have been very supportive of their involvement in mine clearance.² Their participation in the program gives them not only an opportunity outside of the home to earn extra money for their families, but it also is “a source of pride for the women” as they help rebuild their nation after the country’s second civil war (1983–2005).^2,3The only issue that the NPA needed to take into account, they say, was to “respect the difference between the sexes,” by providing separate housing camps for the men and women when they were in the field demining away from home for up to six weeks at a time.¹

In this region of southern Sudan, it is viewed as traditional for a woman to be married and raise a large family. Furthermore, since the end of the civil war, which led to the deaths of approximately two million people and the displacement of another four million citizens, there has been a sentiment in the region that Sudan needs to repopulate due to wartime losses.³ For these reasons, it is not uncommon for many of the women on the team to be pregnant while working.³ NPA has not let the high numbers of pregnancies and the resulting maternity leave stop it from utilizing the benefits of all-female demining teams. It has instead found ways in which to make the team function despite this challenge, since the benefits of an all-female team, such as being able to learn about and use female knowledge of a minefield, the ability to help support a family and the improved status of these women in the community, outweigh this one drawback. For instance, the first all-female team is made up of 35 women. This size is larger than a typical NPA demining team, taking into account the many women who may be on maternity leave.²

NPA has also developed a special program for its female deminers who become pregnant and require leave. In this program, if a female deminer is pregnant, she is automatically given a three-month maternity leave, which is used both before and after the birth. If necessary, for the woman’s comfort, health and safety, extra time can be allotted.¹ After this point, NPA ensures that the woman is able to be with her child for six months by letting her work from the Logobero Base Camp near Yei, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the current demining operation in Morobo county. The NPA also takes advantage of this time by providing the women with important computer and skills training for the job.²Throughout this entire period of three months’ leave and six months working at the base camp, NPA ensures the woman receives the same pay she would if she were demining on the field with the rest of the team.¹

Clearing Mile 38. The team recently participated in the clearance of Mile 38 on the Yei-Juba road—a Line of Disengagement of some 100 hectares  This Mile 38 battlefield was “on the frontline in a decade’s long conflict”³ in Sudan. In the process of mine clearance in this dangerous stretch of land, the women cleared 15,845 square meters (4 acres) and removed 9 pieces of unexploded ordnance,  103 anti-personnel mines and  21 anti-tank mines.¹ The Mile 38 clearance project took over a year, spanning from February 2007 to March 2008. The grueling clearance process involved the use of both manual and mechanical demining techniques, which included the use of the MineWolf.¹ In June 2008 Mile 38 was handed over to the Sudanese government by the NPA, with farming and agriculture predicted as the use for the land.¹

Minebelt at Mile 38, Ganji Payam, Juba. 
Photo courtesy of Charles Frisby

Statistics from the U.N. Mine Action Office in the region show that, there have been over 2,000 recorded civilian casualties and injuries from landmines laid during and since the civil war.³ The heavily mined land in this area has caused more than just death and injury to the people of Sudan. It has made trade and travel virtually impossible, destroyed farmers’ livelihoods and harmed communities throughout southern Sudan. For example, Mile 38 was once a part of a major trade route, but due to fear of landmines and conflict, it is virtually useless land now.³ The women of the team are working to restore their nation and bring an end to the fear that keeps communities from making use of the land.

Continued commitment to gender mainstreaming. NPA has found that in these war-torn communities it is typically women who are involved in gathering wood and water for their families in more remote locations. Due to their knowledge of these lesser-known areas, women have the most information in these rural communities regarding which areas are the most dangerous.²These women, however, are typically an untapped resource of knowledge, since all-male teams go into these areas and speak mainly to the men from the communities about their knowledge of the mine threat in the area. Perhaps this all-women team will be able to speak to more women, accessing vital information that has not been found in the past.²

NPA’s commitment to incorporating women into the demining process continues to pay off. The first all-female demining team’s success in Sudan is just one example of this. Although it seemed that a traditional culture would get in the way, the team has been met with support by their friends and families. The potential issues of pregnancy and maternity leave have not hindered the team, but rather have provided an opportunity for NPA to develop a new program for new mothers. Furthermore, the team has recently finished clearing one of the most dangerous battlefields in the nation, Mile 38, providing communities with land for agriculture and trade. The team hopes to continue on this path, restoring communities and helping the country recover from a long war. 

Biography

Leah Young has been working at the The Journal of Mine Action since January 2008. She is from Virginia Beach and attends James Madison University where she is pursuing an undergraduate degree in justice studies with a minor in Spanish.

Endnotes

1. E-mail correspondence with Charles Frisby, Norwegian People’s Aid Program Manager. 29 May 2008.
2. “Southern Sudan’s Female Deminers.” United Nations Mine Action Office Sudan. January/February 2008 Newsletter. http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/SHIG-7D5CM2?OpenDocument. Accessed 25 July 2008.
3. Wheeler, Skye. “Women Join Demining Charge in South Sudan.” 23 March 2008. Reuters.http://lite.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2740043.htm. Accessed 25 July 2008.

Contact Information

Leah Young
Editorial Assistant
The Journal of ERW And Mine Action
Mine Action Information Center 
E-mail: maic@jmu.edu

Charles Frisby
Program Manager
Norwegian People's Aid
Mine Action Sudan

Email: cfisby@sudan.npaid.org

Civil rights leader,

Robert Franklin Williams

Dar-es-Salaam 1968

Robert Franklin Williams was.….

source

A Meaningful Life

Dr. Jerry Ward

 

 

I CHOSE TO TEACH AT HBCUs

 

                Whether I chose or was chosen to teach at HBCUs is an American knot, one that those who delight in philosophical problems might untie.  Near the end of my tour of duty in Vietnam in 1970, I received an invitation from Dr. N. J. Townsend, chairman of the Department of English at Tougaloo College, to join the faculty as an instructor.  I accepted it.  The opportunity to teach at my alma mater and give back four years of service in exchange for the four wonderful undergraduate years (1960-64) I spent there was more than merely attractive. Tougaloo College had instilled in its graduates a strong sense of obligation.  In the 1960s, as the 1960-61 catalogue informed us,  “great social ferment and rapid change” was occurring worldwide and there was “growing need for young men and women with intellectual ability and breadth of vision, with Christian motivation and discipline and with a spirit of outgoing goodwill toward all men.”  In the 1970s, there still existed a need to help in “an awakening of people who have been denied the privilege and opportunity for the good life.”  I felt obligated to help.

                Armed with a M.S. in English from the Illinois Institute of Technology, two years of courses at the State University of New York at Albany where I focused on the literature of the English Renaissance, and the discipline my serving in  the United States Army provided, I began  to teach courses in composition and literature.  My students, unlike those of my generation, were strongly influenced by what was left  unfinished in the declining years of the Civil Rights Movement and by the assertiveness implicit in the idea of Black Power.  They boldly challenged me to make whatever I taught them relevant.  Many of them thought my regard for Edmund Spenser and Shakespeare was an act of treason or a sign of slavish deference to their enemies. I understood, more than they guessed, that defiance was an integral and noble part of the learning process at Tougaloo, and I was beginning to understand the value of the pedagogy of the oppressed.  I quickly became the subversive instructor.  If my students rejected John Milton, I would teach them to write well and to think critically by close reading of LeRoi Jones’s essays in Home and his historical discourse in Blues People.  If The Scarlet Letter had nothing to say to them, Alice Walker’s The Third Life of Grange Copeland anchored them in the very heart of relevance and made them attentive.

                 My embracing the ideas the students had about relevance did not lead to my abandoning belief in standards of excellence in performance which transcend race or ethnicity or class; it did not lead to minimizing my interests in the works of Plato, Kenneth Burke and Michel Foucault; it led to demanding that students should digest Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Machiavelli.  Relevance changes as the conditions of American society change.  For teachers, the desire to truly empower students and the effort to devise effective way of doing so must remain constant. Change is inevitable, but it is not to be embraced without severe questioning.

 My students knew that I had high expectations of them. As I grew as a teacher, I began to appreciate the importance of being at once demanding and compassionate. A good teacher does not love his students. He simply refuses to allow them not to love themselves.  It has been rumored that one of my students told another he would take my courses “… even if I earn a ‘D.’ At least I will learn something.”

                From my thirty-two years of teaching at Tougaloo College and eight years of teaching at Dillard University I have learned much about American higher education, my colleagues in the profession of English, and the insidious idea that African American students who choose to attend Historically Black Colleges and Universities are innately less intelligent than those students who opt to attend other kinds of institutions.  The fact that we speak rarely of Historically White Colleges and Universities is a clue about what has continued to develop in the total  history of education in the United States.  In higher education in America, the hegemony of confirmative action prevails against any justice that might be discovered, through full disclosure, in affirmative action.              

                Two instances from my life history cast light on what is a central and continuing problem.  Once when I was driving him from Tougaloo College to the Jackson, Mississippi airport, A. Leon Higginbotham  asked me where I wanted to be in ten years.  I replied that I wanted to still be teaching at Tougaloo.  He was much disappointed in my answer, because he said he thought I would at least want to be at Harvard or Yale. Some years later after I had earned my doctorate at the University of Virginia, a historian who had earned his degrees at Yale asked why anyone with a prestigious degree from UVA would want to teach at Tougaloo.  I retorted with signifying anger: “Why do you with your prestigious degrees teach at so third-rate a school as the University of Southern Mississippi?”  On the one hand, it seems I was betraying the race and insulting the aspirations of the integration-drunk black upper middle class.  On the other, I was squandering the investment Mr. Jefferson’s university had made in me by teaching niggers and  untouchables.  Despite the promise contained in the election of Barack Obama, I am not convinced we should hastily conclude that the need for having HBCUs and exceptionally well-prepared scholars who desire to teach at such places has vanished from the American historical process.  Talk about a “post-race society” is only a clever and enslaving use of language. And all Americans have a pathological and patriotic love of being enslaved by the great God Capital in whom they trust.

                I never thought of teaching as merely a matter of employment or as a launching pad for ascent into fame as a critic and scholar.  For me, teaching had to be a more profound investment.  Nor have I been a missionary in quite the sense we associate with those who labored and taught in the nineteenth century when many HBCUs were established.  Despite attractive offers to teach elsewhere, I chose to remain within the orbit of the HBCU.  Until I joined the Dillard faculty in 2002-2003, I never earned a salary commensurate with my years of teaching experience and the scholarly and creative contributions I produced despite heavy teaching duties.  Thanks to a regulation in the old Tougaloo College Faculty Handbook, I had to wait for fourteen years to be granted tenure; only 69% of the faculty members in any department could be tenured. As I near the end of my career as a teacher, I realize the rewards most worth having cannot be reduced to money and things. They can only be measured in terms of how deeply and how  well a teacher has made a significant difference in the lives of others.

                Whether I chose or was chosen to teach at HBCUs, I have no regrets about the choice. The choice was right. The students I have taught since 1970, particularly those I mentored in the UNCF/Mellon Program, have assured me time and again that I did the right thing. I was pragmatic. Obviously, many teachers and scholars in our country’s institutions of higher education have done and continue to do the right thing by way of helping young people to discover and maximize their intellectual capabilities and to become productive citizens of the world.  Nevertheless, HBCUs are unique sites for such work.  To be sure, the fate of educational institutions is determined, more than we often want to acknowledge, by  irreversible changes in the world order. Few of them shall survive in the 21^st century. So be it. It is sufficient that once in time HBCUs enabled me to use my “intellectual ability and breadth of vision” to become a better person as I remained, as some black folk might say, in the tradition.

 

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

 

__________________________

Got Dough?

How Billionaires

Rule Our Schools

Pharoah Sanders:

Living Up to the Name

An unforgettable shock of white hair juts from his chin in stark contrast with the color of the brass, and punctuates the mouthpiece of the horn belonging to Pharoah Sanders, the soul stirring tenor saxophonist from the Bay Area by way of Little Rock, Arkansas.  Once known around the bay as Little Rock, Sanders soon replaced his given name, Farrell with Pharoah, and set about living up to the title – from the elongated beard to the unforgettable powerhouse of a stage presence created by his wailing vibrato and the mystical compositions that have come to typify his catalog.

Sanders began as the child of musicians, quickly tapping into inherent musicianship with a stint on clarinet before picking up the tenor saxophone as a teen at the behest of high school band director and mentor, Jimmy Cannon, who would later introduce Sanders to the world of jazz following a primary interest in the blues.  Taking to jazz, Sanders came of age under the tutelage of bebop and free jazz enthusiasts during his time playing around Oakland, California, before moving to New York City.  After arriving in the big apple, Sanders played with a number of giants in the world of free jazz, including Don Cherry, Billy Higgins, and Sun Ra.  What makes his ascent in the city’s musical scene most intriguing is that Sanders was often found working odd jobs, sleeping on subways, and prone to pawning his horn in order to stay afloat despite the attention and respect of such noted collaborators – the unfortunate and all too familiar hallmarks of life as an artist for many people across eras and talents.

Sanders played in relative anonymity until a chance encounter with John Coltrane at New York’s Village Gate during a performance with his first trio in 1963; the group also included bassist Wilbur Ware and pianist John Hicks.  Sanders recorded his first album as a leader for ESP in 1964 with Pharoah’s First.  The same year, Coltrane asked Sanders to sit in with his band, beginning a professional relationship that would extend into other branches of the Coltrane family catalog and ultimately made Sanders an unofficial member of his band from 1964 until the group dissolved in 1967, following Coltrane’s death.  Both musicians noted for the emotion with which they lead their respective bands, Sanders’ profoundly raw approach was the kind of unabashed nudity that served as great punctuation to Coltrane’s ascending emotional gravitas.  Sanders continued the relationship post-Coltrane, as he collaborated briefly with the late musician’s wife, Alice Coltrane.

 

 

His is a tenor characterized by bursts of climactic fury that precede difficult pauses where theme and percussion often blend to create the multi-layered sound that any fan of Sanders’ can recognize almost immediately.  The only traits of Sanders’ music as distinctive as his individual performance are the contributions of his longtime collaborators and peers during the changing of the avant-garde, as world music slowly leeched into the landscape where brass and percussion were king.  Suddenly Sanders is pushed to the fore as he leads musicians like Idris Muhammad, Walter Booker, John Hicks, Reggie Workman, and Lonnie Liston Smith; all noted amongst the many pioneers of fusion and experimental jazz.

Combined with free love, spiritual enlightenment, demands for world peace, and the reclamation of African cultural identity as a major move away from the hallmarks of colonialism for black Americans, the end of the 1960′s saw the rise of a wide array of musicians incorporating influences and instruments that had not been previously explored or popularized to any great fanfare.  Sanders spent time away from the tenor saxophone on the reed flute, orchestra chimes, congas, bell tree, contrabass clarinet, kalimba, and other percussion.  This was the time when the sitar, tribal drum, and astral plane all found themselves in high demand.  Sanders’ ear for gleaning melodic beauty from what could be considered an intermittently abrasive performance style, coupled with his versatility as a musician is likely what led to his signature sound.  That and his penchant for overblowing; a technique facilitated by the use of a split reed.

 

 

While Sanders’ catalog spans several labels, it is punctuated by the common themes of spirituality, humanity, musical freedom, and the voice of singer Leon Thomas.  Thomas, of Flying Dutchman fame, lent the echo of his warbling vibrato to many of Sanders’ tunes and performances, most notably on Sanders’ chant of a jazz classic, “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” from the 1969 album Karma.  The original version of the track is over 30 minutes long and in some circles, stands as the unofficial follow-up to Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme;” both tracks a commentary on enlightenment and ascension in a pool of distinctly addictive melody.  Other notable releases from this period include Tauhid, Black Unity, Jewels of Thought, and Thembi.

 

 

While the relationship between Thomas and Sanders flourished over several recordings, Sanders’ choice of universally relevant themes has managed to stand the test of time more memorably than any other aspect of his catalog – even as the frequency of his releases has decreased over the past three decades.  With lyricism as touching as his solos, Sanders has turned a career in recording into something closer to a ministry, informed as much by an unmistakable sound as it is by a philosophy explained in the words of his very simple plea: “There is a place where love forever shines, and rainbows are the shadows of a presence so divine, and the glow of that love lights the heavens above, and it’s free, can’t you see, come with me.”

Words by Karas Lamb