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From: "Louisreyesrivera@aol.com"

<Louisreyesrivera@aol.com><br><br>

Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 7:04:07 AM<br><br>

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<a href="http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/redir?src=image&requestId=1e9884f17f6a59f5&clickedItemRank=2&userQuery=Sekou+Sundiata&clickedItemURN=imageDetails%3FinvocationType%3DimageDetails%26query%3DSekou%2BSundiata%26img%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.stanford.edu%252Fdept%252Fida%252FImages%252Fsekou.jpg%26site%3D%26host%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.stanford.edu%252Fdept%252Fida%252FSekou.html%26width%3D124%26height%3D97%26thumbUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fimages-partners-tbn.google.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253At2hqvU4-1Z1FdM%253Awww.stanford.edu%252Fdept%252Fida%252FImages%252Fsekou.jpg%26b%3Dimage%253FinvocationType%253Dtopsearchbox.imagehome%2526query%253DSekou%252BSundiata&moduleId=image_results.jsp.M&obUrl=imageDetails%3FinvocationType%3DimageDetails%26query%3DSekou%2BSundiata%26img%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.stanford.edu%252Fdept%252Fida%252FImages%252Fsekou.jpg%26site%3D%26host%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.stanford.edu%252Fdept%252Fida%252FSekou.html%26width%3D124 %26height%3D97%26thumbUrl%3Dhttp%253A%25">

<img src="http://images-partners-tbn.google.com/images?q=tbn:t2hqvU4-1Z1FdM:www.stanford.edu/dept/ida/Images/sekou.jpg" width=124 height=97 alt="Sekou Sundiata">

</a><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3> <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=5>Obituary:<br>

Gifted Poet Sekou Sundiata<br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4>(August 22, 1948 -- July 18,

2007)<br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>by Louis Reyes Rivera<br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> <br>

 <br>

</font>

<a href="http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/redir?src=image&requestId=a81ee78771f239b&clickedItemRank=12&userQuery=Sekou+Sundiata&clickedItemURN=imageDetails%3FinvocationType%3DimageDetails%26query%3DSekou%2BSundiata%26img%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fvoice.paly.net%252Fmedia%252Fimages%252Fsekousundiata-02-09-2005.jpg%26site%3D%26host%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fvoice.paly.net%252Fview_story.php%253Fid%253D2640%26width%3D84%26height%3D125%26thumbUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fimages-partners-tbn.google.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AehC7flsCLmO3DM%253Avoice.paly.net%252Fmedia%252Fimages%252Fsekousundiata-02-09-2005.jpg%26b%3Dimage%253FinvocationType%253D.image%2526query%253DSekou%252BSundiata&moduleId=image_results.jsp.M&obUrl=imageDetails%3FinvocationType%3DimageDetails%26query%3DSekou%2BSundiata%26img%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fvoice.paly.net%252Fmedia%252Fimages%252Fsekousundiata-02-09-2005.jpg%26site%3D%26host%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fvoice.paly.net%252Fview_story.php%253Fid%253D26 40%26width%3D84%26height%3D125%26thumbUr">

<img src="http://images-partners-tbn.google.com/images?q=tbn:ehC7flsCLmO3DM:voice.paly.net/media/images/sekousundiata-02-09-2005.jpg" width=84 height=125 alt="Sekou Sundiata preforms "Blessing ...">

</a><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3> <br><br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> <br>

 <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>On Wednesday, July 18, 2007,

at 5:47a.m. (ET), poet Sekou Sundiata passed away. A highly esteemed

performing poet, Mr. Sundiata wrote for print, performance, music and

theater. Born Robert Franklin Feaster in Harlem, on August 22, 1948,

Sundiata came of age as an artist during the Black Arts/Black Aesthetic

movements of the 1960s and 1970s. <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>While attending the City

College of New York (CCNY), where he began reciting poetry publicly,

Sundiata converged with several other student activists, including

once-mayoral candidate of Pittsburgh and longtime friend, Leroy Hodge, to

form the basis for what soon became known as the Black and Puerto Rican

Student Community of City College (BPRSC). This phalanx of 400 students

soon made their own history, closing the 21,000-student campus during the

Spring of 1969, to demand, among other things, that CCNY be renamed

Harlem University. The net effect of the student takeover culminated in

both an Open Admissions Policy that took effect in September 1970, the

full legitimization of ethnic studies departments throughout the nation,

as well as the requirement that all education majors within the City

University take courses in African American History and to have Spanish

as a Second Language.<br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>Among his acknowledged

mentors at City were Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, and fellow student

Louis Reyes Rivera, with whom Sundiata helped to establish the first

Black student newspaper in the City University, CCNY's The Paper.

Their association would span close to forty years of mutual respect and

admiration.<br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>Upon completing his

Bachelor's Degree (circa 1974), Sundiata enrolled and completed his

Master's in Creative Writing while regularly producing community-based

poetry readings that were known to draw SRO crowds. In 1976, his creative

sensibilities, his innate organizing skills, and his associations with a

convergent generation of excellent poets, musicians and dancers

immediately led to a collaborative project he directed that would

commemorate 100 years of Black struggle for freedom and Human Rights.

Titled <b>The Sounds of the Memory of Many Living People</b>

<b>(1863-1876/ 1963-1976)</b> , this production, which included upcoming

novelist Arthur Flowers and such poets as Safiya Henderson-Holmes, BJ

Ashanti, Tom Mitchelson, Louis Reyes Rivera, et al, was staged in Harlem

over a period of two days, signaling much of what was to come from

Sekou's sense of vision, steadily breaking ground for what was then a new

literary genre, <br>

Performance Poetry, fully anticipating elements of both Hip Hop Culture

and Spoken Word Art. <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>In 1977, the aforementioned

poets, along with Zizwe Ngafua, Rashidah Ismaili, Fatisha (Hutson),

Sandra Maria Esteves, Akua Lezli Hope, Mervyn Taylor, and Sekou, among

others, formed the Calabash Poets Workshop, which group signaled the

arrival of a new literary heat in New York, regularly producing soirees

and forums (1977-1983) that included all of the arts and culminated in a

three-year attempt (1979-1982) to establish an independent Black Writers

Union. <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>Upon the release of his first

vinyl album (circa 1980), <b>Are & Be</b>, Sekou Sundiata was dubbed

by Amiri Baraka as "the State of the Art." Since then, Mr.

Sundiata established a longtime relationship with  CCNY's Aaron

Davis Performing Arts Center, through which venue he intermittently

produced new material for the stage, consistently collaborating with

musicians, dancers and actors. He was eventually selected for a number of

earned fellowships, including a Sundance Institute Screenwriting Fellow,

a Columbia University Revson Fellow, a Master Artist-in-Residence at the

Atlantic Center for the Arts (Florida), and as the first

Writer-in-Residence at the New School University in New York, in which

university's Eugene Lang College he remained a professor. <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>He was, as well, among those

featured in the Bill Moyers' PBS series on poetry, <b>The Language of

Life</b>, and in Russell Simmons' <b>Def Poetry Jam</b> on HBO. <br><br>

Among several highly acclaimed performance theater works in which he

served as both author and performer are: <b>The Circle Unbroken is a Hard

Bop</b>, which toured nationally and received three AUDELCO Awards and a

BESSIE Award; <b>The Mystery of Love</b>, commissioned and produced by

New Voices/ New Visions at Aaron Davis Hall in New York City and the

American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia; and <b>Udu</b>, a music

theater work produced by 651 ARTS in Brooklyn and presented by the

International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, the Walker Art

Center and Penumbra Theater in Minneapolis, Flynn Center in Burlington,

VT, the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and

Miami-Dade Community College in Florida. Throughout this period and since

1985, he developed a close association with co-collaborator and legendary

trombonist Craig S. Harris.<br><br>

<b>blessing the boats</b>, Sundiata's first solo theater piece, an

exploration into his own personal battles with kidney failure, opened in

November 2002 at Aaron Davis Hall, NYC. It has since been presented in

more than 30 cities and continued to tour nationally. In March 2005,

Sundiata produced <b>The Gift of Life Concert</b>, an organ donation

public awareness event at the Apollo Theater that kicked off a three-week

run of <b>blessing the boats</b> at the Apollo's SoundStage. in

partnership with the Apollo Theater Foundation, the National Kidney

Foundation and the New York Organ Donor Network with support from the

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.<br><br>

Since 2006, his <b>the 51st (dream) state</b> has been presented

throughout the U.S. and in Australia. Both <b>blessing the boats</b> and

<b>the 51st (dream) state</b> were produced in collaboration with

MultiArts Projects and Productions (MAPP). In addition to working within

community engagement activities at Harlem Stages/Aaron Davis Hall, the

University of Michigan and University Musical Society (Ann Arbor, MI),

the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC), the University of

Texas Austin (Austin, TX), in Miami Dade College (Miami, FL), and the

Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, Sundiata has appeared as a featured

speaker and artist at the Imagining America Conference (Ann Arbor, MI),

at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston, MA), and at the Pedagogy

and Theater of the Oppressed Conference (Minneapolis, MN), among others.

Prior to his demise, he was engaged in producing a DVD documenting the

America Project for use by universities and presenters as a model for art

and civic engagement.<br><br>

In addition to the 1979 <b>Are & Be</b> album, Sundiata's other

releases include a second album, <b>The Sounds of the Memory of Many

Living People, and two CDs, The Blue Oneness of Dreams,

nominated for a Grammy Award, and <b>longstoryshort</b>. Each of these

works are rich with the sounds of blues, funk, jazz and African and

Afro-Caribbean percussion, with the latter two featuring Craig Harris.

<br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>He is survived by his mother,

Virginia Myrtle Feaster, his wife, Maurine Knighton, daughter Myisha

Gomez, stepdaughter Aida Riddle, grandson Aman, brothers William Walter

Feaster and Ronald Eugene Feaster, as well as a host of relatives,

admirers, students and friends.<br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>A private funeral service of

family and friends is scheduled for Saturday, July 21, and a

commemorative celebration of his life and work is scheduled to take place

on August 22, his birthday, at Brooklyn Academy of Music's Opera House.

Details to follow. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations

be made in the name of Sekou Sundiata to the New York Organ Donor Network

or to the National Kidney Foundation.<br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> <br>

 <br>

</font>

<a href="http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/redir?src=image&requestId=1e9884f17f6a59f5&clickedItemRank=6&userQuery=Sekou+Sundiata&clickedItemURN=imageDetails%3FinvocationType%3DimageDetails%26query%3DSekou%2BSundiata%26img%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fharlemstage.org%252FIMAGES%252Fseason_sundiata1.jpg%26site%3D%26host%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fharlemstage.org%252FSEASON%252Findex.php%253Fid%253D6%26width%3D123%26height%3D92%26thumbUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fimages-partners-tbn.google.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AkCHQWwD7m-HYYM%253Aharlemstage.org%252FIMAGES%252Fseason_sundiata1.jpg%26b%3Dimage%253FinvocationType%253Dtopsearchbox.imagehome%2526query%253DSekou%252BSundiata&moduleId=image_results.jsp.M&obUrl=imageDetails%3FinvocationType%3DimageDetails%26query%3DSekou%2BSundiata%26img%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fharlemstage.org%252FIMAGES%252Fseason_sundiata1.jpg%26site%3D%26host%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fharlemstage.org%252FSEASON%252Findex.php%253Fid%253D6%26width%3D123%26height%3 D92%26thumbUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fimag">

<img src="http://images-partners-tbn.google.com/images?q=tbn:kCHQWwD7m-HYYM:harlemstage.org/IMAGES/season_sundiata1.jpg" width=123 height=92 alt="Sekou Sundiata Days of Art and Ideas">

</a><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3> <br>

</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2> <br>

 <br>

 <br>

<a href="http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/redir?src=image&requestId=75556b33376037d1&clickedItemRank=13&userQuery=Sekou+Sundiata&clickedItemURN=imageDetails%3FinvocationType%3DimageDetails%26query%3DSekou%2BSundiata%26img%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.walkerart.org%252Farchive%252F0%252FAC73710815E9AF9F6165.jpg%26site%3D%26host%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.walkerart.org%252Farchive%252F0%252FAE7371ECFE953DC6616B.htm%26width%3D104%26height%3D71%26thumbUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fimages-partners-tbn.google.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AVmY4fe5zCcmKoM%253Awww.walkerart.org%252Farchive%252F0%252FAC73710815E9AF9F6165.jpg%26b%3Dimage%253Fquery%253DSekou%252BSundiata%2526page%253D2%2526invocationType%253D.image%2526clickstreamid%253D8638305754049323869&moduleId=image_results.jsp.M&obUrl=imageDetails%3FinvocationType%3DimageDetails%26query%3DSekou%2BSundiata%26img%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.walkerart.org%252Farchive%252F0%252FAC73710815E9AF9F6165.jpg%26site%3D%26host%3Dhttp% 253A%252F%252Fwww.walkerart.org%252Farch">

<img src="http://images-partners-tbn.google.com/images?q=tbn:VmY4fe5zCcmKoM:www.walkerart.org/archive/0/AC73710815E9AF9F6165.jpg" width=104 height=71 alt="CRAIG HARRIS/SEKOU SUNDIATA: UDU">

</a> <br>

(l. Craig Harris; r. Sekou Sundiata) <br><br>

<br><br>

<br><br>

</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>

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