Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

On Josephine Baker and the Politics of Educating Americans

1/23/2023

"Josephine Baker and Chiquita Abstract Magenta" digital painting by Aberjhani. Now available for purchase at Pixels.com, Fine Art America, and here at Bright Skylark Literary Productions.

The article on Josephine Baker (1906-1975) for Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance was written by Sandra L. West (1947-2019). Until working on the book project with her, my perception of the great diva had been shaped primarily by quick glimpses of classic black and white images of her dancing either nude or semi-nude.
She was to me a pretty, comical, innately sensuous, island girl with some vague connection to the United States and France. Research revealed and corrected the many layers of a misunderstood truth.

I began this post to draw attention to the above Josephine Baker tribute art series. Just as I was completing it, disturbing news arrived: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s Department of Education had rejected an Advanced Placement course addressing different aspects of African-American Studies. The rationale for doing so was that it paved the way for ideological indoctrination into the “Woke movement” as fueled by Critical Race Theory. That is something DeSantis has strongly opposed and stated the proposed AP African-American Studies course lacks educational value.

Dr. Lisa Hill, one of the authors of the program, said at its launch in September last year: “The course encourages students to examine each theme from a variety of perspectives, without ideology, in line with the field’s tradition of debates.” In short, the objective is to expand access to the kind of knowledge which impacts our understanding, or misunderstanding, of the demographically evolving world in which we live. It was the same goal that I and different contributors to Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance had when completing it.

Perceptions and Realities

The intensity of DeSantis’ objection to progressive initiatives when it comes to racial factors have long puzzled many People of Color. Perception of the governor’s political strategy is not very different from how Justice Clarence Thomas’s unyielding conservatism is viewed among many Blacks. While it appears to make no sense within the context of their daily social reality, it stands up well enough as abstract legal conception.

A frequent assumption regarding DeSantis is that he is Latino and his interests should, therefore, automatically align with those he decries as woke ideologists. However, despite the smiling photograph of him on Hispanic culture pages, the governor’s publicized heritage is Italian––not Latinx––going back several generations. He clearly has found it more politically advantageous to let Americans assume whatever pleases them while presenting himself, more than anything else, simply as a committed conservative republican.

It would be fair enough at this point to ask what any of this has to do with my current celebration of Josephine Baker. The answer is pretty much: everything. Were it not for the social, political, and financial inequities and omissions which daily impair the lives of people belonging to different demographic groups in America, there would be no need for certain types of corrective considerations. As it is, levels of awareness concerning different cultural experiences directly influences the quality of all Americans’ lives.

Detail from "Josephine Baker Stardust Silhouette" art by Aberjhani. Now available for purchase here on Bright Skylark Literary Productions, on Pixels.com, and at Fine Art America.

What I knew and did not know about Josephine Baker’s story prior to studying it in depth for Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance had caused me to consider her in much less regard than I should have. But it wasn’t the victorious Baker and other Harlem Renaissance greats who had lost out to all those years of unknowing. It was me and other misinformed individuals like me.

From New Art Series Product Page:

"Cheers went up around the world in 2021 when French officials announced American-born actress, singer, and World War II spy Josephine Baker would become the first Black woman to be inducted into the Parisian Panthéon. The announcement made me smile because Josephine Baker is one the historic figures celebrated in Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (this year 2023 is the 20th anniversary of the encyclopedia’s publication).

"The new 2023 edition prints of Baker featured in this series are mixed media and digitally textured interpretations of classic historical photographs and posters categorized as public domain. Some of the new prints are abstract expressionism, or surrealistic impressionism, and others enhanced antique sepia. Baker is widely celebrated during Women’s History Month, Black History Month, and in general as an iconic international entertainer. I sometimes think of her as America’s loss (due to the extreme Jim Crow racism practiced in the United States during her lifetime) and France’s gain."

Aberjhani
Creator of the Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle
Co-creator of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

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The Years 2022 and 2023 (part 2 of 2): Looking Ahead

1/1/2023

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(Multimedia art graphic by Aberjhani featuring book covers of Infobase Publishing’s Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance incorporating artwork by Harlem Renaissance artists: Jacob A. Lawrence and Archibald J. Motley, Jr.)

EDITORIAL NOTE: You can read part 1 of this article by clicking here. Part 2 begins now:

The years 2020-2022 delivered some brutal surprises most of us could easily have done without and it is likely the year 2023 will throw some hard punches our way as well. That makes it all the more pleasurable to begin the second part of this article by noting the entire suite of current and forthcoming Bright Skylark websites will continue to offer Free Full Reading and Viewing Access. It is an honor to be able to say content highlighted here has benefitted the goals and aspirations of people around the world. These goals and aspirations to date have been in the form of:

Humanitarian campaigns in support of climate change refugees
Humanitarian campaigns in support of nonviolent conflict resolution
Activism efforts to end war in diverse countries around the world
Ecological campaigns supportive of environmental sustainability
Classroom materials for teachers (texts on Proquest.com citing works)
Research papers for high school and college students (cited on Course Hero)
Graduation theses for college students and PhD candidates (cited on Academia.edu)
Platform support for new and emerging literary talents
Platform support for new and emerging visual artists
Promotion of cultural arts and practices devoted to harmonious coexistence
Advocacy efforts in support of human rights in diverse countries
Humanitarian campaigns devoted to the prevention of suicide

A listing of all Bright Skylark initiatives, and how values and strategies have translated into different cultures and languages, would require a separate article. For now, the above listing provides a solid idea of the work done here. Beyond the noted inspired labors, a lot of groundwork has already been laid to reach important project goals and create memorable moments worth appreciating and, when appropriate, celebrating:

Harlem Renaissance Forever

A big special moment two decades in the making is the 20th anniversary of the publication of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Infobase Publishing). With the emphasis many place these days on cultural heritage and legacies, the deaths of Sandra L. West (1947-2019 and Clement Alexander Price (1945-2014), my co-author and foreword author on the encyclopedia respectively, make its 20th anniversary all the more significant. With them, the encyclopedia itself, and the numerous scholars, researchers, and creatives who have benefitted from it in mind, observations of the milestone will take place throughout 2023. They will include but not be limited to the following:

THE 2023 RELAUNCH of Harlem Renaissance Centennial website with the brand new header seen at the top of this post.

THE FIRST-TIME EVER publication of “The Harlem Renaissance in Savannah: Presentation Commemorating the 90th Anniversary of The Savannah Carnegie Library, August 28, 2004” (on HR Centennial website).

FIRST-TIME PRESENTATION of stories from the Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance Archives told through collected correspondence and project journals.
PRESENTATION OF CLASSIC AXS articles and poetry from National Cultural Arts Examiner Column and Creative Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance Archive Collection.

Resting on Laurels Not Part of 2023 Strategy

The idea of “resting on one’s laurels,” as in proclaiming past accomplishments while doing nothing to grow the existing body of one’s creative works, has never been an option for me. The need to do better, and contribute more (when possible) has always served as motivation to address humanity’s ever-changing condition in imaginative ways. That at times has meant using minimal resources to accomplish maximum results.

At the end of January 2022, I began video-recording weekly interviews with legendary Savannah State University radio programmer and former Coastal Jazz Association president Theron “Ike” Carter. At this point in January 2023, we now have more than 100 gigabytes of footage and photographs, along with a small library of books and CDs for a special work in progress: The Ike Carter Passion Supreme African-American Musical Heritage Project.

Legendary Savannah State University radio programmer Theron "Ike" Carter Jr. contemplating dynamics of the history of African-American music.

Fans of Carter’s who grew up listening to his music programs, as well as those now enjoying rebroadcasts and new streaming editions, know he brings an incredible wealth of knowledge and insights to his craft. In our conversations, we’ve attempted to go even further by delving into the significance of influential figures in music and how music culture in Savannah impacted his life and personality.

The interview sessions have been part of a lengthy preparation for a multi-media project focused on the radio programmer’s experiences and interpretations of different facets of African-American music, culture, and history. Additional research and the completion of a first book manuscript are likely to take the whole of 2023 and revisions may very possibly, or even likely, carry over into 2024. So 2022 gave us a good independent start and hopefully funding will become available to see the work through to completion. Donations to support the project are now being accepted.

Standing Strong against the Pandemic

Progress on the Covid-19 Red Zone Letters and Art Book moved forward in a big way in 2022 with the completion of more than 100 art images and corresponding text to fill 12 sections focused on life in this time of marvels and mayhem. While a number of art pieces created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are already available for purchase online, the visual style and written substance of this unusual volume are largely unique to it. In addition to representing direct lived responses to the new realities imposed by the pandemic, they provide what may be taken as case studies of the layered racial, economic, political, and social inequalities which added to the challenge of the pandemic itself.

"Social Distance Meets Love's Persistence" COVID-19 art by Aberjhani available for purchase at Fine Art America, Pixels.com, and the Bright Skylark LP art shop.

Yet because people adopted so many innovative ways of adapting to the plague-induced difficulties, the empowering beauty of those times also had to be acknowledged. They remain useful in situations like America’s current so-called “tripledemic.” Because of its multimedia format, it is possible a second paperback and/or eBook edition emphasizing text from the volume may be published.

Becoming Better Practitioners

As yet unforeseen events of the year 2023, independent of hopes and plans at Bright Skylark Literary Productions, will undoubtedly demand attention and cause distractions––much like those of the past year. That will mean becoming even better practitioners of such lessons already learned from exercising resilience and approaching the most damaging challenging problems with the most empowering creative solutions.

Aberjhani Author-Poet-Artist
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

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

2/17/2022

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“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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On Josephine Baker and the Politics of Educating Americans

Perceptions and Realities

From New Art Series Product Page:

Aberjhani
Creator of the Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle
Co-creator of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

The Years 2022 and 2023 (part 2 of 2): Looking Ahead

Harlem Renaissance Forever

Resting on Laurels Not Part of 2023 Strategy

Standing Strong against the Pandemic

Becoming Better Practitioners

Aberjhani Author-Poet-Artist
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

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

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

On Josephine Baker and the Politics of Educating Americans

Perceptions and Realities

From New Art Series Product Page:

AberjhaniCreator of the Original Silk-Featherbrush ArtstyleCo-creator of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

The Years 2022 and 2023 (part 2 of 2): Looking Ahead

Harlem Renaissance Forever

Resting on Laurels Not Part of 2023 Strategy

Standing Strong against the Pandemic

Becoming Better Practitioners

Aberjhani Author-Poet-ArtistAuthor of Dreams of the Immortal City SavannahCreator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

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

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Aberjhani
Creator of the Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle
Co-creator of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

Aberjhani Author-Poet-Artist
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

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