The end was nearing of Black History Month 2019 in North America, and that year's International Women's Day was about to begin. I became reflective, memories returning of my dad’s death on July 20, 1988. His death triggered intense psychological growth.
I expanded my mind reading biographies of Malcolm X, Franz Fanon, Angela Davis, Martin Luther King Jr, Mary Seacole, Miss Lou, and others. I also read all their speeches or other public statements, where I could find them, in my quest to understand the process of transformation for good, for positive social change for humankind. I read old journals published by people like Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Ida B Wells; stories of the Harlem Rennaisance, stories about how black families survived slavery. This was essential to me. In researching this area, I learned more about the calculated dehumanization of Africans who crossed to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade. I learned about the parallel mythification of the history of indigenous Americans. I learned about how non-black indentured families survived slavery. As a middle class Jamaican Canadian woman, I became class aware and developed a critical consciousness about the complex ways that class realities intersect with race, gender, sexuality, orientation and other identities.
I shared what I learned in the content of my ckln fm radio show. I applied the 80/20 rule to various aspects of my radio show, and it was something I rarely discussed. My program was culturally inclusive, and I aimed to increase the amount of work I highlighted created by black people, aboriginal people and people of colour, and included work by experimental white artists in all creative disciplines. I consciously wove the music and words of artists like Faith Nolan, Clifton Joseph, ahdri zhina mandiela, John Trudell, George Clinton, Lillian Allen, Burning Spear, the Black Rock Coalition, Robert Priest, The Cramps, Toni Morrison, Queen Latifah, Annette Peacock, Salt and Pepa, Gil Scot-Heron, Hawkwind, and so many more. I became obsessed with learning more about the impact of black people's migration on the evolution of visual arts, literature, film, and music in the Americas and around the globe. Against the backdrop of the surreal imagery and experiences of our lives impacted by the legacy of transatlantic slavery that every European nation had participated in. I could never accept social assumptions that we black people didn't travel outside the confines of that slave history. Descended from African slaves, immediately after the USA Civil War through the beginning of the 20th century, we black people - all over the globe - were travelling and impacting the world and the evolution of contemporary culture. Undeniable to this day, despite the invsible untold. For instance, living in Wales, Paul Robeson was not only African and African American, but also Welsh and European in spirit. He embraced his Africanness and the idea that everyone is entitled to be a free citizen of the world, no matter where they lived or where they were born. And almost 50 years since his passing, there remains love and appreciation, and wonder here for the spirit and song of a person who came from another part of the world. Today, we mirror souls like Robeson’s. We continue to do that travelling and producing art in all disciplines that influence taste and decisions. We continue and go beyond, rooted in a deep history of indestructible, unrestrained creative expression.
