When on his way to the OAU my father received the suggestion to do a story about the breaking down of the East African community. This meant going to Tanzania and Kenya. Uganda was chaotic at the time and not accessible. My father left Gabon for Kenya to begin the […]
My father made multiple trips to the African continent traveling north, east, south, and west. His first trip was to Algeria and Morocco. His second trip started in Gabon in 1977. He was there for the conference of the Organization for African Unity (OAU). That part of the trip did […]
My mouth is full of porcupine needles. I pull them out one at a time. There is so much to say and nothing more to say about the virulent public rise of Neo-Nazis, KKK and other White Supremacists Americans. It is not just the horrors of Charlottesville or the impressive […]
When I was a child when I thought of Africa I was pretty steeped in racist clichés . I had seen endless pictures of nearly naked Africans dancing around gigantic cast iron pots with trembling white missionaries cooking inside. I knew nothing of Benin Bronzes or Zimbabwe Ruins / I […]
I am a very private person. I rarely go on Facebook with the happenings in my life. I especially don’t brag about my blessings. I live in what can only be called an embarrassment of riches, my mate, my children and grandchildren, all of my family extending out, my writing […]
The story below is one of those stories that my father intermittently told my brother and I while we were growing up. We loved the idea of gangs as protectors, of clubs organized around mutual survival, and I loved the idea that feuding factions could find common cause and move forward. […]
For Anthony Brown the art of music must carry a purpose, a politic, a call to action and/or a healing. I ended this interview with him talking about current and upcoming work. I always enjoy your performances but the recent iteration of Max Roach’s We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, and […]
My father first visited Berkeley when he was a yeoman in the Navy. Less than a year after my brother was born in Chicago, the three of them took a train to Berkeley to begin their California life. I was born in Berkeley, but that city was too small for […]
I have known and worked with Anthony Brown for decades. He has always been a musician with a vision that embraced and transcended his art form. A grammy nominated composer, arranger, drummer/percussionist and recording artist, he tours nationally and internationally and always includes his world view and life imperatives as a […]
An obvious question for my Dad was what was his road to writer and how and why did he find his home in non-fiction. As a second-generation writer I had my father, god father and many of my parents’ friends as shining beacons. But my father was from a different […]
