Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

African Americans Far from Home (part 1): In Search of Dreams Deferred

2/17/2022

“These clients taught me that, no matter one’s ethnicity or cultural background, most people around the world share similar traits or concerns such as money, health, family and love.”
––author Darrell Gartrell

The African-American identity within the international community is much like a global brand which historically has helped enable the career success of Black U.S. citizens outside their homeland. That is less surprising than it first might seem when considering: the heroic roles American Blacks have played in events such as World Wars I and II in Europe; or when acting as ambassadors of the cultural arts worldwide; or, when coaching voters in South Africa on how to elect Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918–2013) as the country’s first Black and democratically-elected president.

The body of literature on African Americans’ adventures outside the United States is extensive and among the world’s richest and most entertaining. The significance of such explorations has been well documented in volumes like Tyler Stovall’s Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light (1996); and, in musician Stew’s and Heidi Rodewald’s 2008 award-winning musical, Passing Strange (adapted for the screen by director Spike Lee in 2009).

Fans of iconic author James Baldwin’s famous 1953 essay, “Stranger in the Village,” will recall his blues-flavored musings, while staying in a snow-covered hamlet in Switzerland, on the evolution of racial identities in America. Contemporary author Darrell Gartrell’s 2016 memoir, 21 Years of Wisdom: One Man's Extraordinary Odyssey in Japan, contains equally-compelling insights but presented, obviously, through a very different lens.

Baldwin was an American Black Man self-removed from his beloved community of Harlem in New York City to escape the toxic atmosphere of Jim Crow racism and further develop as a writer. Gartrell did something many techno-charged Millennials accustomed to the practice of working remotely at home might find intriguing: he left his home in South-Central Los Angeles with the intention of seeking and claiming his fortune in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Journey to a Distant Shore

Gartrell introduces readers to his life in the city of Osaka, Japan, 1990s, as he is driving home on a mostly deserted street at 4 a.m. and pulled over by a policeman––on a bicycle. (The scene is more gently humorous than foreboding; yet, for readers unable to shake scenes of fatal encounters between Black people and American policemen over the past decade, it makes a strong contrast.) What starts out as a routine traffic stop for running a red light on a street absent of any other traffic evolves into a requirement for the author to upgrade his international driver’s permit to a valid Japanese license. As he begins to accomplish this, he is reminded of a lesson in survival particularly valuable for the millions of people today immigrating, or fleeing as refugees, from one country to another:

“I would discover in the most blatant way that the driving exam itself had little to do with actual driving, but rather, how well you could take an ass kick’n and keep on tick’n—or at least smiling––a fundamental theme in Japanese society and culture called gaman” (21 Years of Wisdom, pbk ed p. 8).

In the pages which follow, as he experiences a series of thrilling ups and painful humbling downs, it become clear this ability to survive in order to thrive has served him well more than once. And very likely will do so again.

Before delving deeper into the narrative detailing his rise to eminence in Japan’s language school, or “eikaiwa (ae-kai-wa)” industry, Gartrell takes us back in time. Readers are treated first to the thoroughly American story of his mixed ancestry. We are then steered through scenes from his youth, including a visit to Savannah, Georgia, at the age of six with his father, Barnet Gartrell.

From Tragedy to Triumph

Thanks to the entrepreneurial “hustling” of Barnet Gartrell, our narrator’s family had the good fortune of living in relative upper middle class comfort next door to Harlem Renaissance great Flournoy Miller (a celebrated performer whom this writer wrote about in Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance). Comfort, however, did not mean immunity from disruptions such as some of the most violent race riots in American history, harrowing confrontations with members of L.A.’s notorious street gangs, and death. As he points out regarding one fateful season in his adolescence:

“There was a lot to ponder that summer: losing my father to cancer, my best friend and two classmates to murder, even the dog was killed” (p. 30).

The very elements which shade his youth with a sense of tragedy also push him to earn a B.S. degree in finance from California State University and begin exploring possibilities of establishing a life for himself in Europe, or elsewhere, outside the United States. A series of almost mystical encounters eventually find him negotiating his way through the intricacies of Japanese language and customs.

Striving for Success

There is little Gartrell does not cover in his memoir, a book which could also serve as an important college classroom text on business ethics or cultural literacy. From the kind of quirky racial biases and distinct social preferences found in most countries, to observations regarding cultural r/evolutions and his own sexscapades, he paints a large, detailed, and frequently fascinating picture.

Since he is writing about a Black American living in Japan, readers might expect accounts similar in tone to the first chapter’s. Such stories are in fact delivered in a style which effectively blends rhythms of the author’s personal anxieties with the kind of detached observations one might expect from an anthropologist. This becomes less surprising when noting his basic personal philosophy: “…My main beliefs were and continue to be rooted in science. A scientific mind and a refined intuition constitute the perfect balance for any self-respecting Libra” (p. 166).

Anchored by the convictions of his beliefs and his Cal State degree, Gartrell takes his first steps as a “certified sensei,” or teacher, shortly after his arrival in Osaka during Black History Month 1991. In addition to working with a prestigious business college, he pulls double duty by offering private English lessons on the second floor of a McDonald’s restaurant while also managing to learn the Japanese language largely on his own.

By page 102, he is conducting lessons in his apartment. Then, rather “improbably” as Barack Obama described his election to the U.S. presidency, only 78 pages later he is opening his first Wisdom21 school. “I settled on the name ‘Wisdom21,’” he writes, “to reflect all the knowledge I had gleaned from reading New Age books, as well as the new millennium just a few years away” (p. 180)

The various obstacles he overcomes to expand this eikaiwa enterprise teaching English as a second language take their emotional and physical tolls. Keeping his eyes on a long-sought prize, he eventually manages to open a sixth branch in Japan’s capitol city and one of the major financial centers of the world: Tokyo.

NEXT: African Americans Far from Home (part 2): Intimacy, Ethics, and Take-Aways

By Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

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Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance Turns 18!

9/1/2021

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Celebrating the 18th anniversary of the publication of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts On File/Infobase Publishing) by Aberjhani and Sandra L. West with foreword by Clement Alexander Price. Original cover art painting by Jacob A. Lawrence.

The fact that Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance turns 18 in September makes me more than a little emotional. It was my second major book (after the birth of I Made My Boy Out of Poetry) and at this time I feel about it as many parents do when an offspring turns 18: apprehensive, reflective, grateful to have come this far.

Several days passed before I allowed myself to actually pick up a copy of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance after boxes of both the hardback and paperback editions arrived at my home in September 2003. The cover art, featuring a painting by celebrated Harlem Renaissance artist Jacob Lawrence, was so beautiful I almost felt like touching it would be a criminal offense. (The more recent second edition has art by Archibald J. Motley on the cover.)

Having labored virtually nonstop for months and years prior to that moment to complete the encyclopedia, I suddenly found the anticipated joy of physically holding the book plagued by fears and doubts. Much the way humanity en masse of late has found itself afflicted by divisions over vaccinations and face mask mandates when it comes to continuing the battle against COVID-19 and its more lethal Delta variant.

My problem had nothing to do with a virus and everything to do with lingering questions over how well my writing partner, Sandra, and I had fulfilled a mission we both considered sacred. Had we utilized available resources efficiently enough? Had we provided readers fair balanced interpretations of “known facts” relevant to our subjects’ lives? Was the work a worthy tribute to their phenomenal accomplishments and sacrifices? I had gone through a similar trial of initiation involving The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois book when it arrived a week earlier. Only it was a smaller project which caused less anxiety.

Once I allowed myself to lift Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance out of its box, sit down with a cup of coffee and go through its pages, I reached an important sanity-preserving conclusion. We (Sandra, myself, Clement Alexander Price, and our amazing contributors) had added significantly to the expansion and elevation of conversations surrounding the impact of the renaissance.

Confronting History with History

In the months and years to come, we would take a number of the critical hits which tend to follow the publication of such groundbreaking work. However, important awards, numerous citations, supportive reviews, and further editions would also follow.

"Harlem Renaissance Deja Vu Number 1" artwork by Aberjhani on sale at Fine Art America.com and Pixels.com.

Moreover, the book was published just after the 9-11 Attacks and prior to the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement. As such, it helped lay the groundwork for important dialogues addressing both events. Just being mindful of that is one beautifully-satisfying way to celebrate Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance’s 18th birthday. Another is the following:

Documenting the Story of One Book’s Amazing Journey

As I observe this 18th birthday of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, I am very mindful of the fact that my co-author for the title, Sandra L. West, and writer of the foreword, Clement Alexander Price, are now deceased. So is the man who provided us with the book’s epigraph, Ja A. Jahannes. But rather than immerse myself in sorrow over their passing, I am more inclined to acknowledge the enduring radiance with which their spirits and intellect blessed our enterprise. They would be happy to know the book continues to serve as a valuable resource for a new generation of students of the renaissance. Below, in closing, are links to my tributes to them as well as to a few posts on the encyclopedia’s impact thus far:

Tribute to Harlem Renaissance Chronicler Sandra L. West Part 1
Tribute to Harlem Renaissance Chronicler Sandra L. West Part 2

City of Newark Honors Historian Clement Alexander Price

The Wit Wisdom and Genius of Ja A. Jahannes
10th Anniversary of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

Text and Meaning in Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance Part 1
Text and Meaning in Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance Part 2

On Misconceptions and Alternative Interpretations of a Life

And at this point, now that the Harlem Renaissance Centennial is upon us, my personal Harlem Renaissance journey continues…

Aberjhani
Harlem Renaissance Centennial

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Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street Race Riot

5/16/2021

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While the New York City neighborhood of Harlem, which the late Dr. Clement Alexander Price referred to as “that most brilliantly lit terrain,” has been rightly celebrated as the focal point of the Harlem Renaissance, there were a number of other communities where African Africans managed to thrive during the “Jazz Age” of the 1920s. One such community was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and May/June 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of its racially-motivated destruction.

This commemoration is in honor of those Black strivers whose lives and homes were demolished by hate but whose legacy still inspires.

Revelation of a Tragedy

What is now described as the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 is something I knew nothing about until I began conducting research on an article about Tulsa for Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. In the course of that research, I was fortunate to connect and correspond with one Dr. Gregory E. Brown. At the time, Dr. Brown was director of an organization called the Black Holocaust Society and described himself as “The Angry Black Man.” He made me aware of America’s Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, founded in 1984 by lynching survivor Dr. James Cameron.

He also pointed me towards a cache of images in the public domain which had been culled from “movie reels in the National Archives” and other photographs previously collected by Bob Hower, author of Angels of Mercy (a book on the Red Cross’s response to the riots).

Visiting Dr. Brown’s Black Holocaust Society website while working on the encyclopedia in 2002, I was stunned to read this statement: “Between 1824 and 1951 there were over 300 events classified as ‘White Race Riots’ in which entire white communities turned on Black Americans and destroyed entire Black communities and murdered Blacks in mass. There were 26 such major events in major cities across the US during the summer of 1919 alone. This period has been tagged by historians as ‘The Red Summer of 1919’ because the events all happened from May to October of that year and the blood of their victims literally painted the streets of America.”

No less stunning were the images he sent me of charred bodies, bombed buildings, and Black people standing or sitting outside as they wondered what to do next. How could something so monumental have been omitted from the classes on American history I had taken in high school and college?

That I had been selected to co-author (with Sandra L. West) Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, and the article on Tulsa fallen into a section for which I was responsible, made me feel obligated to make sure the massacre could never be forgotten again. This is a short excerpt on what made the community so exceptional:

“Prior to the massive waves of African Americans exiting the South to head North, many had been lured to the state of Oklahoma as early as the end of the 19th century in hopes of cashing in on its growing oil industry. By 1921, the state could boast the distinction of having more than two dozen towns populated and governed by blacks. Within Tulsa, approximately 15,000 African Americans made up the city’s district of Greenwood. Forced by segregation to rely upon their own means and resources, the citizens of the community became so successful that the district became known as ‘Black Wall Street.’

“Despite the active presence of the Ku Klux Klan, frequent lynchings and regular ‘whipping parties’ during which Blacks were assaulted for sport, Greenwood maintained 600 businesses, a post office, a hospital, 21 restaurants, a library, a line of buses, a bank, two movie theaters, 21 churches and 30 grocery stores. Jazz and other forms of African American music was a strong part of the community’s culture…” (Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Facts on File/Infobase Publishing)

An Expanding Black Wall Street Film Archive

Since the publication of the first edition of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance in 2003, a number of important completed and projected film projects have helped raise awareness about the destruction of Black Wall Street. Among the most acclaimed is the HBO TV mini-series The Watchmen (2019), for which actress/director Regina King won a 2018 Emmy Award.

Other film projects ensuring the massacre and its consequences are never forgotten are: Resurrecting Black Wall Street (2015), Greenwood: 13 Hours (2017 short film), Black Wall Street Burning (2020), Dreamland: The Rise and Fall of Black Wall Street (documentary announced in 2020), and Black Wall Street: An American Nightmare (2021).

A thorough documentation of the 1921 Tulsa riots is only one benefit of the media now devoted to them. Another is the opportunity they provide to study how and why residents of an American city reached such an explosive deadly boiling point. Much of it, we know, had to do with both fear and envy of the economic progress which African Americans were making in Tulsa at the time.

It matters because even though we cannot, in 2021, point to the destruction of a single community of African Americans spanning blocks within a specific US city, the world has borne witness repeatedly to African Americans killed by White police officers in situations which did not have to end with their deaths. Similar hate-fueled incidents have happened in regard to Latinos/Latinxs and Asian Americans as America transitions from a country dominated by a White population to one with a larger population of diverse “minority” groups. The change, clearly, is not one to which many Whites have been adjusting calmly.

Just as the social customs and official laws of the Jim Crow segregation era contributed to the violence of The Red Summer of 1919 and the Black Wall Street massacre two years later, so have various legislative policies and racial biases contributed to the violent deaths of African Americans over the past two decades. Bearing that in mind, it may be that this 100th anniversary of Tulsa’s deadly riot should commemorate something more than the pain and horror of what occurred. Maybe it could serve as a renewed commitment to making good on America’s promise to provide equal opportunities for all its increasingly-diverse citizens. It might also help us to remember, during this time when wars and rumors of wars once again dominate news headlines, we can gain a lot more striving for harmonious coexistence than we can by giving in to hate-filled rage and fear-driven ignorance.

Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

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Speaking of Women's History

3/7/2020

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“…turnin’ nouns into verbs braids into crowns
and always fetchin’ dreams from a horizon
strewn with bones and flesh of those of us
who didn’t make it…”
Ntozake Shange (from poem “people of watts”)

The poem from which the above quote was taken, “people of watts,” by the late playwright and poet Ntozake Shange (1948-2018) was originally published in her Wild Beauty collection and more recently in the special spring 2020 edition of African Voices Magazine dedicated to Shange and Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison (1931-2019). The quoted lines summarize with agonizing eloquence the work Shange and Morrison have done to resurrect the lynched legacies of African American women. I hope they apply as well to my poem, “A Song of Toni Morrison My Soul Now Sings,” included in African Voices’ celebration of the authors’ amazing lives.

Cover of African Voices Magazine Spring 2020 special tribute edition dedicated to the late African-American women authors Ntozake Shange (seen here on the cover) and Toni Morrison. To order magazine on African Voices' website click the image.

Publisher Carolyn Butts, in her introductory note, spells out the importance of the women’s literary triumphs: “Part 2 of our Ntozake Shange issue honors two Black women writers whose language ignited movements around the principles of self-love, healing and interconnectivity. Toni Morrison and Ntozake Shange freed us from restricting cultural mores while stretching our language and shifting our gaze. We tip our pens in gratitude…”

Balancing Scales of Recognition

Women have always occupied major positions in my nonfiction books, fictional works, essays, poems, and journalism. That may have become more evident over the past year with the inclusion of my work in the art catalogue, Suzanne Jackson: Five Decades, and announcement of my forthcoming lecture at the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home in Savannah, Georgia.

Morrison in particular has been a recurring subject. However, by comparison, I’ve written far too little about Shange. That realization comes as a major surprise because I recall clearly the controversies stirred over her iconic play: For Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf, and the impact it had on me and others.

Described as a choreopoem by Shange in the late 1970s, the play had already become a cultural phenomenon (much like the TV production of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has today) by the time I saw it at Temple University in Philadelphia. The playwright had set astonishing witnessed truths, some of them beautiful and some of them horrifying, to linguistic music, and dressed them up in skirted dancing hues. It was as visually captivating as it was dramatically innovative and exhilarating.

Promotional art graphic for director Tyler Perry’s film adaption of Ntozake Shange’s FOR COLORED GIRLS starring: Loretta Devine, Kimberly Elise, Whoopi Goldberg, Macy Gray, Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, and Kerry Washington.

Male friends had declined to go see it with me because they bought into the hype it was “anti Black men.” While there may have been grounds for such an argument, I had grown up with too many sisters and female cousins to fail to recognize the shocking validity of Shange’s voice. I had read the works of too many of her predecessors–like Zora Neale Hurston, Ann Petry, and Lorraine Hansberry––to fail to accept that hers was a major authentic contribution to a dialogue essential to African Americans’ expanded understanding of African Americans. As a young writer looking to develop his own voice, how I could I not be astounded by what she had done with hers?

It is not the destiny of literary sisters like Morrison, Maya Angelou, and Shange to rest in peace. Legacies such as theirs tend to lift our love for and memories of them ever higher in power. That is something for which we can always be grateful.

Aberjhani
© Women’s History Month 2020
Harlem Renaissance Centennial

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A Special Bright Skylark Black History Month Tradition Continues

2/27/2020

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Display of books and literary journals featuring writings by Aberjhani with an art poster for Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah in the center. (photo from Bright Skylark Literary Productions Collections)

Receiving feedback about content published on a cultural arts website like Bright Skylark Literary Productions is always a good thing so I appreciate visitors who have expressed disappointment over the lack of posts usually presented every February in celebration of Black History Month (officially ordained by the U.S. Government as African-American History Month). Sometimes we find ourselves too engaged in living the unfolding history of the present moment to address the exemplary achievements of the past. At least that’s how it has been with me lately.

As indicated in the previous post I am currently scheduled to give a lecture at the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home in May. Presenting a lecture on such an iconic author, even when preparing to publish a book in conjunction with the same, is not something which can be done (not by me anyway) haphazardly. It has required extensive focus and tapping a few reserves of stored energy. Which is why I’m grateful that while I was concentrating on O’Connor’s work, folks at the WW Law Community Center Branch Library in Savannah, Georgia, were featuring a display of my book Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah along with a poster for it in honor of Black History Month. An administrator asked if I would be willing to take a few photos at the library. I agreed.

A Literary Photo-Op

To accomplish our shared mission, I went to the library (where I have conducted research many times) and took with me about a dozen books which I had either written, co-written, edited, or contributed to, plus just as many literary magazines containing writings by me. I had never assembled my various publications for photographing so was kind of stunned by the variety and quantity, from the slender first paperback edition of I Made My Boy Out of Poetry and early volumes of the Savannah Literary Journal, to shiny hardback copies of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, ELEMENTAL The Power of Illuminated Love, and the Civil War Savannah Book Series. Included in the creative mix was a 1992 edition of the African American Review and a more recent poster rendition of the book cover for Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah.

This is the cover of a well-preserved copy of the 1992 edition of the African American Review featuring Harlem Renaissance artist William H. Johnson’s 1944 oil painting “Moon Over Harlem.” Inside in the review’s first poetry section is “Black Man Sitting on a Rock” by Aberjhani.

Even more amazing was realizing copies of ESSENCE Magazine and numerous other publications––not to mention online articles, essays, and blog posts––were not included in the display. If ever I felt tempted to criticize myself for not having done more (thus far) as an author, there before me was considerable evidence of a substantial effort. So having put it all together, the librarians took a number of photos, some of them showing me with the books and some of the books by themselves. The lighting was not the best for picture-taking but it turned out to be a good way to continue a very special Bright Skylark Black History Month tradition.

Aberjhani
© Harlem Renaissance Centennial 2020

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African Americans Far from Home (part 1): In Search of Dreams Deferred

Journey to a Distant Shore

From Tragedy to Triumph

Striving for Success

By Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance Turns 18!

Confronting History with History

Documenting the Story of One Book’s Amazing Journey

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street Race Riot

Revelation of a Tragedy

An Expanding Black Wall Street Film Archive

Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Contact the Author at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Speaking of Women's History

Balancing Scales of Recognition

Contact the Author

A Special Bright Skylark Black History Month Tradition Continues

A Literary Photo-Op

Contact the Author

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

African Americans Far from Home (part 1): In Search of Dreams Deferred

​Journey to a Distant Shore

From Tragedy to Triumph

Striving for Success

By AberjhaniCo-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem RenaissanceAuthor of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My MindCreator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance Turns 18!

Confronting History with History

Documenting the Story of One Book’s Amazing Journey

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street Race Riot

​Revelation of a Tragedy

​An Expanding Black Wall Street Film Archive

AberjhaniCo-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem RenaissanceAuthor of Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Contact the Author at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Speaking of Women's History

Balancing Scales of Recognition

Contact the Author

A Special Bright Skylark Black History Month Tradition Continues

A Literary Photo-Op

Contact the Author

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Journey to a Distant Shore

By Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Revelation of a Tragedy

An Expanding Black Wall Street Film Archive

Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind