Born and bred in Georgia, USA, Cashawn Myers is the driving force behind HABESHA, an organization that is almost two decades old and concerned wholeheartedly with pan-African self determination. From the “repatriation headquarters” in Tutu, Ghana, the Rastafari visionary known to many as Binghi Shawn took a moment to advise us about how to prepare for a move to Africa. Our enlightening conversation allows us to learn about HABESHA’s track record of accomplishments in Atlanta, plus get a glimpse of what is coming next on the other side of the Atlantic.
What is HABESHA?
HABESHA is a pan-African organization that cultivates leadership and youth and families through five major areas: cultural education, sustainable agriculture, entrepreneurship, holistic health and technology. HABESHA is both an acronym and a word. The acronym stands for Helping Africa By Establishing Schools at Home and Abroad, and the word is an Ethiopian Amharic word that means the original people of Ethiopia. The organization has been around since 2002, based originally in Atlanta, Georgia. Since that time, we have grown to have branches in various places, including New York, Baltimore, Washington DC, the Virgin Islands and currently doing work in Ghana, West Africa, where I have been residing for the past four years as we build up this indigenous research and training institute as well as repatriation headquarters called the Kweku Andoh Sustainability Institute (KASI). All our programs are embedded in a pan-African philosophy.
How did HABESHA start?
I was a student at Howard University in Washington DC from 1998 to 2000. There I met a lot of Africans and, under the guidance of Rastafari elders from the Nyabinghi community, I learned and built up my acumen as a leader. As a part of my masters thesis at Howard University, I developed a curriculum teaching youth about African history and culture, called the CEAD curriculum, which stood for Cultural Enrichment and Academic Development. When I returned to Atlanta, before HABESHA was an official organization, I was working on my PhD at Clark Atlanta University and was inspired by a professor who told us about the AUC Consortium of universities. All these beacons of knowledge were in one place and right next to them was a public housing facility called University Homes, the second oldest public housing facility in the country next to Techwood Homes, which is also in Atlanta and supposed to be for students of Georgia Institute of Technology. What the professor said that was so powerful was that we have this public housing facility that was named in honor of these universities, however there was no clear pipeline between the youth living there and the universities. The youth were literally a stone’s throw away from these beacons of knowledge but there was no clear path for them to see themselves in those universities. That touched me. The following summer, myself and another one of my bredrins decided to do a summer camp for the youth in the area. We went around talking to youth and parents about doing a Saturday program. At the time, we didn’t have a fully fleshed out program. It was just the love of the youth, wanting to connect them and teach them about their history and culture. We did field trips and different things and it was a success.
Inspired by that, we decided not only to utilize videos and books but to give them experiential learning, to see, touch, taste and feel their culture and history. Over the following spring break, we scheduled appointments with five African embassies in DC. We drove up there to meet with the Tanzanian, Kenyan, Zimbabwean, Ethiopian and Ghanaian embassies. Our goal was to let them know of our interest in being able to bring youths to Africa, so they could have this immersion. Fortunately for us, all the embassies were very much welcoming, however none of them had any funding or resources to provide for us. So we were encouraged but at the same time we now knew we had to come up with a plan to fundraise and strategize, which we did for about a year. At the time, we probably had the strongest connection to Ghana because we knew ones who had already lived there. At the end of 2003, my queen and I made our first journey to Ghana and we planned out the program then, deciding to call it Black To Our Roots. We returned to the States in January 2004 and began to set up the components for the program, building on what we had done previously with the summer program.
How has Black To Our Roots developed since then?
We started recruiting in March 2004, and by July – as a matter of fact, on His Majesty, Haile Selassie I’s birthday – we arrived with our first group of five students and two adults for Black To Our Roots. Subsequently, we had a group of youth travel to Ghana every year until 2011. Then we decided to incorporate East Africa in the journey, which we always wanted to do because we know that our story begins in the east and the west is where many of us were taken to the shores of the Americas and the Caribbean. So we revamped the program to include travel to both Ethiopia and Ghana. In 2012, we took a group to Ethiopia for two weeks, then to Ghana for two weeks. We also extended the time between trips from one year to two years, giving us time to fundraise more and to do more vigorous research because the youths had to do more than just travel to the countries. They had to do research projects, camping and other field trips, community service projects and also fundraise a large portion for their journey. It was really a self-empowerment program as much as anything else, and has been very successful. We now consult with other Africa-centered, youth-based organizations that are interested in traveling. We share our curriculum and facilitate when they come here.
Getting urban youths accustomed to working with the soil is a positive effect of HABESHA’s Sustainable Seeds program. [Contributed]
What are some other works of the organization?
Our work around growing food and urban agriculture in Atlanta has really gained momentum over the years. We realized early on that, as a part of who we are as African people, the land has always been critical to us. Particularly when you talk about liberation and independence as an African people, we first have to talk about our food. So we began our program around growing food, health and nutrition because we knew that this was a way to reverse the health issues in our community and to dispel this stigma around connecting with the land as akin to slavery. In the south especially, Black people have this thing that if you’re doing anything in the dirt, if you’re working in the land, it’s like being a slave. We wanted to break this myth because we know it’s actually the very opposite. We were forced to work the land for free because of our knowledge of the land but in no way was that work on the land beneath any other field or career. Our goal was to begin to elevate the work of the land so that our people see that it’s liberating work versus oppressive work. Again, we started with the youth because we know that once you can change their minds, it can reverberate to everyone else. In most uprisings it’s the youth who take the lead. So we started a program called Sustainable Seeds. One of our mottos, which we got from Baba Tarik Oduno, is: there’s no culture without agriculture. We would build gardens at either community centers or schools, and we would use those spaces as outdoor classrooms, teaching the youths about growing food and eating healthy, and also infusing the African culture within that. We first started off doing guerilla gardening – a term that’s popular now but I&I was doing it from then. Basically, it’s like capture land. You see a vacant lot and you go in and deal with it. The whole idea behind it is to use any vacant space and grow food. The first space that we had was a vacant playground at a community center. The librarian at the community center told us that no one had used it since some Rastafari had used it as a garden ten years before. The grass was chest high, so we just went in and cleared the thing up and were just in the community doing our thing. From the momentum of community people seeing the grassroots efforts, the school next door reached out to us and that’s how we formally started an official after-school program in 2003. The vibe grew from there and we started to get support for the work.
How did HABESHA begin hosting festivals?
We actually initiated our first festival during the time of Sustainable Seeds. My good good bredrin, Ras Kofi, asked me and a next bredrin to do a segment around gardening on his radio show. So we were on there talking about food and people would call in with questions. It went real well and people were requesting me to do more things in person, so Ras Kofi suggested that we do an event, which we did. The first year of the festival, I came up with this crazy name, The Summer Organic Garden and Health Celebration, which was a mouthful. The following year, Ras Kofi was like, Let’s call this thing Organic Fest. That name stuck and, as they say, the rest is history. We’ve been running that every year since 2003. The garden is the centerpiece and there are tours, activities for the youths, vendors and music. This is the first year that we haven’t had it, because of the pandemic and everything that’s going on. In the fall we do Harvest Fest, which is a similar format to Organic Fest in the summer. We’ve been doing that one since 2011. We’ll just put our energy into that one this year and do the Organic Fest again in 2021.
There’s one thing I really loved about the festivals. Where we had our main garden site was at a City of Atlanta park, and they had an open area with a stage and stuff. We were able to launch many of the up-and-coming, underground Atlanta artists, who were able to get some of their first opportunities for exposure at the Organic Fest. That built a relationship with the creative community that I think is very powerful. It set up some of the things we’re seeing now. They have a lot of vegan restaurants and vegan, outdoor festivals now but, back then, the Organic Fest was the only all vegan, ital, outdoor festival. We tied in the agriculture with the food piece, and then we tied in the artists. Now what you see, particularly in Atlanta and other places, is that the creative industry is very much tied in with growing your own food, health and nutrition. We were able to help usher in some of the consciousness that we see right now around growing your own food, connecting to the land and always keeping a pan-African focus.
How did adult programs come into the picture?
A major momentum shift in the work that we do happened in 2011 because of the interest that many adults had around growing their own food. We had a lot of requests to do educational programs for adults, so we developed an adult training program called HABESHA Works that was focused on agribusiness and health and nutrition. It’s a workforce development program with agriculture as the main component. At the time, there was nothing like that around. Growing your own food was starting to get some momentum but it wasn’t at the point where it was trending. I remember one time we went to a Black organization to get funding support for the initiative, and we said we wanted to certify people in organic urban agriculture. When we gave them the proposal, the brother and sister who were sitting with us said, Okay, you wanna do a certification program but who’s certifying you? I had to look at them and ask them about entities like the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and others that license and certify people. Before they got started, who gave them the authority to certify people? They gave themselves the authority! The reason why their certification withstood the test of time is because the people who they certified were able to show a level of competence in whatever it was that they said they were competent in. So I told them, This is an act of self-determination. We’re not waiting for someone else to endorse us. We’re going to create what we think is necessary for our people. We got our own standards. Needless to say, they didn’t give us the support but that didn’t stop us, you overs? We kept going. We did the program and it was an outstanding success. By the fourth or fifth year, no one was asking us who certified us again. Our trainees who graduated from our program represented it well because of the high level of excellence and the amount of skills and knowledge they had. Now we have people requesting our graduates. Ras Kofi, for example, is running a farm now in Atlanta and he will only employ those who have gone through our program. Similar entities in urban agriculture know we’re not only giving them the tools and techniques, but we’re rooting it in nation-building and community building.
Eliminating things that are not necessities in your life will do one of two things. One, it will prepare you to know how to acclimate when you come. Two, it will help you to save money on a practical level, to prepare yourself to use those funds for the other side.
What are some practical steps for repatriating to Africa?
I would say, for ones coming from the “developed nations,” the main thing is simplifying your life. Minimizing. Many times we have a lot of dainties and different things that we’re used to, States-side and other places, whether that’s our cable TV or our processed snacks and this and that. Begin to discipline yourself to be able to live without those things. Here in Ghana, fortunately, a lot of those are available. Even us who are vegan, you got your vegan ice-cream and those things here. At the same time they are not as accessible and it takes a different perspective on what you call comfort. You may not have all the amenities that you have in the States but many of those amenities are not necessities. They are more wants. So I always encourage ones to really focus on what the needs are. Begin minimizing your cost of living from now. Even start to lessen the amount of things you have, whether that’s clothes or whatever. Just begin to downsize. Don’t get me wrong. They have mansions and things here, so it’s not like you have to live in a tin or a shanty. At the same time, it’s always good to prepare yourself in that way so that you can be ready for whatever when you come. Eliminating things that are not necessities in your life will do one of two things. One, it will prepare you to know how to acclimate when you come. Two, it will help you to save money on a practical level, to prepare yourself to use those funds for the other side.
Another thing is that many of us have a fantasized perspective. Sometimes ones come, maybe with a bag of money, ready to go, and feel like that’s going to save them and they’ll be able to deal with everything with that set of money. They don’t necessarily have a plan how to continue to bring in income. And what they’ll realize is that you may come with a bag of money but there are related costs when you’re first coming in and you goin’ have more costs than once you get settled ‘cause you goin’ have to learn your way around. You’re going to have other costs, whether it’s renting a place or taking public transport. Food, lodging and the overall cost of living is much less but some people get confused and think that it’s almost free. It’s not free. You still have to have income. So, think about ways to get income, whether it’s through a skill set you have, a service you want to provide, a product that you can think of or that you may be doing. A lot of ones now are doing more things online, selling products or teaching virtually or other things where you don’t have to be in one particular place. Fortunately the internet situation in Ghana has gotten a lot better, so you’re able to conduct business from wherever.
One other way to prepare from now is to think about where on the continent you want to repatriate to because, you know, Africa is a big place. What type of people, environment and vibes do you want to be around? Study the geographical locations, whether you want to be on a beachside or a mountainous area. Try to also study some of the culture and history of the people. Those are things we can start doing on the internet. Learn about the people and that will help you to know which areas are a good fit. African cultures definitely have a lot of similarities that we can see, one being a connection to the Creator. Also, a sense of community. Those are some of the commonalities but there are also stark differences. Perfect example: when we take the youth to Ethiopia and Ghana, we compare and contrast the cultures. The people in Ethiopia are a lot more conservative than the people in Ghana. Ghana is very much a boisterous place, where people are loud and expressive and the women love colorful clothes. In Ethiopia, the people are very much humble and reserved and don’t raise their voices. You have to know what those cultural differences are and what you’re comfortable with. Someone who wants to have the rowdy rah rah vibes, and they go to Ethiopia and see that it’s very conservative, they may feel out of place because that’s not who they are. Study not only the history of the people but try to get connected to current affairs, whether that’s through knowing some ones who are currently there or finding out what local television stations, newspapers or online platforms share information about current events. Learn about the current sociopolitical conditions of those areas, just so you get an idea as much as you can.
Try to begin learning some of the language as well, even if it’s just a few words here and there. It makes a difference. When you can go up to someone and at least say a few words, a greeting or giving thanks or whatever, it opens up portals. It opens up opportunities for connections. Ghana is a place where English is the official language so, technically, you could live in Ghana and speak English all your life and be okay. What I’ve noticed though is that those who come here and make an intentional effort to learn the language have a strong connection and do better than those who rely on English. English becomes a barrier on one hand and, from a security perspective, if you don’t know the language, ones could be around you plotting your demise and you won’t even be aware. You overs? So, both on the proactive and the reactive level, learning the language is something that is a critical piece to repatriation.
How does being seen as an outsider – oburoni in the case of Ghana – affect daily life?
For I personally, it’s not something slapped in my face daily. It’s based on relationships and how you deal with people. The ones who attempt to learn the language and try to connect with the people around them can break those barriers much quicker. When we first came, we were hearing oburoni a lot ‘cause we were new. It’s not even about skin complexion. You even got some ones who are Ghanaian, who may have left and came back. They’ll call them oburoni. At the end of the day, oburoni was associated initially with white people but really it’s foreigner. It goes by how you vibe up. On the flip side, if I’m out and about, maybe in the market, I’ll ask how much something costs in Twi, and ones will go straight into talking to me in Twi unless I say, Hold on, I’m still learning. So the more you put an effort towards connecting with the people, it becomes reciprocal. Again, the language is probably the best way to break barriers. But that’s not to say that you don’t have bad apples who don’t see I&I as brothers and sisters. As one of the elders said, some only see I&I as dollar bills with legs. So you have to use your i-rits still, common sense. We have been fortunate because we’ve had relationships and been doing work here since 2004. Even though we’ve been living here only since 2016, we already had built relationships and a certain level of trust established with certain ones. Really, that core of ones that I was moving with initially is still the core of ones that I move with. Anywhere you go, it’s about building trust, not being naive, using the wise mind.
How can one acquire land in Ghana?
There are three types of land. You have family land, which is more like individual land, you have government land and then you have stool land. In Ghana, the stool is like the throne. Stool land would be controlled by a chief or royal family. The most troublesome, or the one that can create the most problems, is the government land. The reason is that government changes year to year and politics can be tricky. The most stable is probably the stool land because the chiefs or royal families outright own the land. They have say-so in how it moves and what goes along with it, and they can make decisions much easier because of that. The chief may consult with his people or advisors but ultimately it’s his decision to make. Stool land is not usually in Accra or the cities. You will find them in a more rural place or not as developed.
I&I have gotten different parcels of land here. All of them have been family land and there’s a process that you have to go through to do land search. They used to do the survey with a compass. Now they’re using GPS, so the process is a lot better. You would hear some stories of ones selling lands more than once, selling one person a plot of land and then somebody else comes along and they sell them the same plot of land. The registration process wasn’t as tight but now everything is tight. You can plug the coordinates into the computer and it will pop up, who owns the land and who has the registration. So things are much better from a land purchasing perspective.
There are two ways to purchase land. You have the deed of indenture, outright ownership of the land, and the deed of conveyance, a lease up to ninety-nine years. Mostly in places that are developed, if you’re not a Ghanaian citizen, you’ll have to get a deed of conveyance. If you are in rural areas, or depending on who you know, you can get the deed of indenture. We’ve been fortunate because HABESHA is established here in Ghana as a non-governmental organization (NGO), which can also get deeds of indenture. Our headquarters, which is about forty minutes outside of Accra, is in a bustling area with a lot of re-pats. We were able to get it as a deed of indenture under the ownership of HABESHA Foundation.
Binghi Shawn, standing next to solar panels donated to KASI. [Contributed]
What else is on the horizon for HABESHA?
Energy and effort on this side has really been focusing on the building and development of the main campus of KASI as a fully functioning, self-sustaining institute in Liati Wote, which is a town in the Volta Region. Initially, we were going to have the grand opening coincide with the 5th annual Black Sustainability Summit, bringing together people of African descent from all over the world who are doing work around sustainability. The summit had been online for the first four years. This year it would have been in person for the first time. We had it slated for October. However, with COVID-19 and restrictions in travel, we have pushed the launch date for both the institute and the summit to July 2021.
The HABESHA headquarters – we sometimes call it the HABESHA embassy – is a residential headquarters for staff and visitors, located in Tutu. It is fully off the grid, powered by solar energy. We have our own well and also collect rainwater. We have a biofil toilet system, which means we compost and reuse all of our waste on site. We grow our food. We got about thirty different varieties of fruit trees as well as seasonal crops. It’s a 7000 square foot, three-story space with six bedrooms. We built the headquarters first so we could really learn about how to build and develop. Now, as we’re building the first phase of KASI, we’ll have housing for students and residential space for those who are looking to repatriate. We’re also developing an 18-month repatriation curriculum right now, using experience from the Black To Our Roots program. We’ll have a 6-month prepartriation program, which is an online component to prepare ones, then a 12-month program on the ground. Our goal is to have our first cohort of participants in September 2021.
We will also use KASI as a research site. It is named after Kweku Andoh, a Ghanaian ethnobotanist. He studied a lot of the cultural and ethical uses of herbs in West Africa and is credited for introducing the moringa plant to the USA about 35 years ago. I was one of his students before he passed away in 2011. Our goal is to focus on three major plants: moringa, cannabis and bamboo. There’s a lot of research already done on moringa and we’ll be continuing that. We already make natural fertilizers with it. Cannabis just got legalized for medicinal and industrial uses. We want to use KASI to find all the indigenous cannabis strains on the continent. Bamboo is abundant in the local area so we’re utilizing it in a lot of our building structures. We’re also looking at developing some industries around bamboo. Both bamboo and hemp fiber are very strong. They’re both wonder plants. They grow quickly and can be used for food, fuel and fiber.
In 2022 or 2023, we’re also launching our own version of the Rhodes Scholarship. We know Cecil Rhodes was a monster, a thief and a murderer. We’re calling our version the Andoh Scholars. I&I want to select two youths from the USA, two from the Caribbean, two from Europe, two from Asia, two from Ghana and two from the wider African continent. Similar to how the Rhodes Scholars are indoctrinated to pledge allegiance to the queen of England and the whole colonial society, we want to bring these youths together to do a similar thing for Africa and African people, and teach them about sustainable and natural living, embedding that in history and culture. When they leave, they will have a level of knowledge that they can take to their communities and share and build.
LISTEN: Cashawn Myers outlines a few of KASI’s planned programs and activities. [1 min, 6 sec]
The ultimate aim of culture, to me, is life preservation. When I look to culture, I look to the land. I look to nature. That’s the source. That’s what the Creator gave to us to be able to preserve life. And not only that. That’s the best place we look to mimic life.
If culture is the last stand, what is culture to you?
[Read for context: Culture is the last stand]
When we look at how, as a people, we’ve been really dehumanized and oppressed, it’s been through trying to separate us from our culture, separating us from the foundation of what makes us who we are. It’s not only a DNA thing. It’s something that helps with our survival. To me, culture in its purest form is our greatest survival mechanism. It’s almost like our shield and protection because the things that we do on a daily basis, these are the things that our ancestors did because they saw them as the best way to preserve and continue life. The ultimate aim of culture, to me, is life preservation. When I look to culture, I look to the land. I look to nature. That’s the source. That’s what the Creator gave to us to be able to preserve life. And not only that. That’s the best place we look to mimic life. For instance, here in Ghana, they have these huge termite mounds – sometimes ten or fifteen feet. They are usually made out of red clay. Our ancestors were inspired by that concept and used it to develop their original homes. When we observe nature, we actually learn how to live better ourselves. We can observe how particular animals forage for food. People would watch animals and follow them to find where the water sources were. They knew they could have a symbiotic relationship with certain animals.
I’m not one to say that culture is one thing. The best cultures grow and adapt to the times. African culture has been the longest sustained culture on Earth. Look at somewhere like Ethiopia. They’ve been able to adapt, even in this modern era. How can we maintain those ancient traditions, bring in the up-and-coming things for the future, and then also be able to critically analyze the things from the past? Just because it’s from the past doesn’t mean it’s something we need to keep. We saw His Majesty abolish slavery and some other things that he did. Great cultures are able to adapt to their environments and still maintain their true identity. We can adapt to the situations around us without losing who we are. I think that’s through connecting to the land, knowing that family is an integral part, passing on traditions, whether orally or through film or other media. One of our biggest strengths as African people is that we’ve held onto our identity even in the midst of the onslaught of ones trying to take it from us or deny that we even have a culture.
How do people receive Rastafari in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa?
I’ve been to Togo, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Libya, Egypt, South Africa and Ethiopia, and I was just in Rwanda in January. In general, the reception that I have gotten in all those places has been overwhelmingly positive. When I was in South Africa, I was very pleased to see that the majority of the Rases were indigenous. It’s good that the indigenous Rases really embrace the livity. In West Africa – and specifically Ghana – the amount of love and respect that I get as a Ras is profound. I can’t speak for everyone but I’ll be in the streets and, out of nowhere, a regular bald-head in a suit will hail you, Ras! Respect! A lot of the times they call you Rasti. Even the police and soldiers, some will see you and know you deal with herbs and might want to search you ‘cause they think they may be able to get a little something off you or do some bribery but there’s respect for the most part. The respect of the average people has grown. When I first came to Ghana, having dreadlocks was taboo. The fetish priests or Vodou priests wore dreadlocks, didn’t wear shoes and were kinda disconnected from society. They were looking dreadful and terrible. Think about early Jamaica with the black heart man. Now, there’s been a desensitizing of what Rastafari is. To be quite honest, the main reason why Rastafari is respected is Bob Marley, hands down. Because of reggae music generally, and it’s message of glorifying Africa, that has given people an affinity towards Rastafari. Even if they don’t know about His Majesty and all the intricacies of the livity – and many don’t – they know that the foundation of Rastafari is the love of Africa. And that makes them feel good.
LISTEN: Cashawn Myers reflects on the increasing acceptance of Rastafari in Ethiopia [2 min]
Rastafari is at the tip of the spear when it comes to repatriation, when it comes to anything related to Africa on a whole. I say this without flinching: it’s through Rastafari that the world is going to heal in the sense of repatriation and the pan-African agenda. Rastafari is at the forefront and it ain’t because we got the bag of money. It’s because of what we’ve been standing for and how we live. Every place I’ve traveled, it’s very, very evident. As a part of Ghana’s Year of Return, citizenship was granted to a hundred and twenty-six people. If you had to break the people up in groups, Rastafari was overwhelmingly the largest group. And these were ones who’ve been here for years, advocating and pushing. They have the Black Star Line Co-operative Credit Union and some other works.
What recent or favorite book(s) would you recommend to readers?
We homeschool the youths and we’re going through a book with them, called Black People Invented Everything by this brother, Supreme Understanding. It’s more like a reference guide. My other references include The Wise Mind of H.I.M. Haile Selassie I. Speeches of His Majesty are always on my top list and I’m now re-reading his autobiography, My Life and Ethiopia’s Progress, Volume 1.
I’m also reading Growing Out Loud by an elder out of Atlanta, Rashid Nuri, who was big in the city’s urban agriculture movement with an organization called Truly Living Well Center for Natural Urban Agriculture.
Of course, historical works like The Autobiography of Malcolm X is an all-time favorite. Cheikh Anta Diop’s Civilization or Barbarism, John G. Jackson’s Introduction to African Civilizations, Chancellor Williams’ The Destruction of Black Civilization, Marimba Ani’s Yurugu is another pillar and, of course, Carter G. Woodson’s The Mis-education of the Negro. And then The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Those are some of the foundational ones that I&I reference.
LISTEN: Cashawn Myers compares historic tension between Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie with that between Killmonger and T’challa in the Black Panther film. [1 min, 54 sec]
Who are people throughout the Diaspora (past and present) who have shaped or influenced you?
I have to start close to home. My grandmother, Rosa Stephenson. My grandfather, Clifford Maynor, also known as Kippy. Both of them passed recently. I never saw my grandfather work for no one else in his life, so I always saw him as an entrepreneur or a businessman. My first memory of him, I was 5 years old, I remember him getting pulled over by this white police officer, and this was in a little, down south Georgia small town. He came up to my grandfather’s pickup truck and, as soon as he came up, my grandfather cussed the police officer out! He told him he shouldn’t have stopped him and that he (the officer) needed to go about his business. And the white police officer did exactly that! He left and went ‘bout his business! That always stood out to me all my life, to see how my grandfather dealt with that white man because, even at 5 years old, I overstood racism to some extent and the situation we were in. I had been called a nigger already at that point, so I was aware. My grandfather wasn’t a man who could tell you all the countries of Africa and know the Nguzo Saba. He wasn’t a pan-Africanist from that perspective but he was a Black man with dignity. My grandmother laid the foundation for me. My mother had me at 15 years old, so I was raised by the village. I was raised by elders. My grandmother really raised me when I was younger, so I learned a lot. She taught me, “Manners will take you farther than money will.” If I could tell you the amount of times that quote saved me in my travels…
Outside of family, John C. Robinson, the Brown Condor of Ethiopia. He was the Lieutenant in the Imperial Ethiopian Air Force during the time of the second Italian invasion, as a volunteer I-thiopian. He later started the company that is now Ethiopian Airlines and is considered the father of the Tuskegee Airmen. That brother inspires me. Also, out of the Virgin Islands, Edward Wilmot Blyden was another one who was dealing with repatriation. Of course, we have ones like Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey. And Wangari Maathai – I was able to meet her in 2011 before she passed away.
Particularly with the work that I&I doing now, Mama Harriett Tubman. I really consider the work I&I doing as a continuation of her work.