Wanda's Picks Radio Show: African Unity

We opened with a prerecorded interview with Nefertina Abrams, Royal House of Makeda Productions, and Melame Gange, ModeAfrika apparel, (first aired 7/2/2014) re: Ubuntu-Faqir Simunye or Pan African Love and Unity Festival on its concluding night, July 4, 2014, 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. at the Humanist Hall on 27th Street, in Oakland. We open with Gange’s “African Suns.”  We then play a segment from an interview with Civil Rights Movement architect, Dave Dennis, who is just returning home from a successful 50th Anniversary Conference at Tougaloo College in Mississippi. The goal of the conference was to answer the following questions: What were the lessons learned? How do they apply to today’s challenges? What is the next phrase? How will an appropriate response be developed for the next phase? While speaking to Mr. Dennis about the conference and current issues on the stove top boiling over presently like Voter’s Rights and Educational Opportunity, especially for black youth as access to higher education still is not either the norm or representative of the majority of black families, Mr. Dennis the first in his family to graduate from high school. 50 years later, I meet students in my classroom who are the first to graduate from high school and college. Next steps obviously include access to college education and programs in place to address the attrition rate among black men. Ironically, the issues around voter’s rights are expiring as state’s reevaluate residents’ rights and make certain residents ineligible or make voter registration difficult and access to the polls another hurdle in society where historic memory is a tragedy of youthful ignorance and social apathy.  Music: selections from Meklit and Quinn and Melik Hadero; the Nile Project: Salaam Nubia from Aswan and Tezete; Melame Gange's African Suns and Dancing Partner.