By Mary Lou Garza (ANJ Online) –
It is important to confer honor or distinction to those who give of themselves to improve the lives of others, and it is equally important to give honor to our ancestry, ancestors, to those who have passed and who have paved the way for us, as well as to those who are here with us, our parents, families, friends, coworkers; all who strive to make the world a better place. On February 27, 2011 African Global Roots (AGR), an arts promotions group with special focus on African art and artists living and working in and around Minnesota, did just that, it honored Nneka Onyilofor, its Program Director.Meet Nneka Onyilofor. Her first name is Igbo and means “mother is supreme, Nneka’s father was Nigerian and her mother is African American from Milwaukee, WI. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota with a B.S. in Family Social Science and a Master of Liberal Studies. Her master thesis on globalization in West African contemporary culture with a major focus on Ghanaian hip-life music, her studies in Ghana, French-speaking Mali, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador (Bahia) Brazil and in Nigeria, are evidence of her love of learning and travel, and have helped broaden who she is and her understanding of the world and the African Diaspora of which she is a part of.
Nneka is, not only a program director for AGR and as such has successfully done program planning and events, such as AGR’s second annual African arts festival in the summer 2010, but holds an adjunct faculty position at McNally Smith College of Music, teaching, “Diaspora of African Music.” She’s also worked at African American Family Services, at the University of Minnesota as an Admissions Counselor and as lead instructor for three black history courses in the African American and African Studies Department. Additionally, she’s coordinated and taught a college prep course at the Brian Coyle Center in Minneapolis, where her passion for helping youth in their community allowed her students to succeed.
MC and Libation.
Meredith Lemiso, graduate of Mankato State’s cultural studies and of Nigerian and Congolese ancestry by way of New Orleans Creole heritage, quite ably and with a flair for fun, emceed the event. Per Lemiso we did not observe Black History Month this year due, perhaps, to the distraction of all the recent world conflicts and protests? She noted that even with an African American president little was celebrated. Lemiso sought out AGR, the sponsor of the event, for its common interest in the development of indigenous peoples in the Diaspora. In honor of the rituals of the indigenous and as a promoter and seeker of knowledge, she offered the pouring of libations, to both acknowledge and/or invite the ancestors’ presence or to preserve their memory as she called upon such greats as Harriet Tubman, Langston Hughes, and Phyllis Weatley. While the libation pouring may not have been “ladylike” (spewing) according to Lemiso, it was effective in that it caught audience attention and relayed the necessity of honoring those who have gone before us! And, besides the grace that Lemiso bestows could not be taken away!
Lemiso introduced Nneka Onyilofor who loves to write and has done so as a freelance writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder Newspaper, and as a published writer for Minneapolis Liberator, African News Journal, and AIM Magazine, as a poet and founder of Moonlight Poetry, an open mike venue, and as a participant in the 2008 Givens Black Writer’s Retreat which included a performance in the group “Nu Griots.” Currently Nneka is working on a children’s book of poetry, her own personal poetry, essays, and a play she wrote in high school.
IBé Kaba, also a program director for AGR, an accomplished spoken word artist, poet and writer, met Nneka in 2004 at Moonlight Poetry at Petro Haile’s, executive director of AGR, family restaurant called Global Dish.
“Nneka was the host and because she was, you could walk in and just feel at home. Nneka hasn’t been reading her poetry and I hope she reads today. Nneka as a world traveler and life-long student, is living the life I want to live. I would describe myself as a Pan-Africanist, but Nneka is the one who is studying African culture in Brazil, in Mali. I am jealous. If I could make someone disappear and take her persona, it would be Nneka.” Of the work Nneka does at AGR: “Her commitment, [ability in] moving things thru makes things happen! In the fashion show, she is forward-thinking, a bright mind to see. She has dreams, but is also committed to action. AGR has things to achieve, needs legs.” She is those legs…
Nneka’s retort, “IBé’s already published an anthology! He has it all, a wife, three kids, wins awards, publishes books!” She admits she quit writing, due to being overcommitted with grad school and writing for local publications. She has over 300 poems and has been writing since she was 15. Her subject matter changes as she moves through life.
“My first 20 or so poems were about religion, God, and Jesus, then they were about black history which I studied on my own, then I wrote about family, love, then I expanded the scope as I’ve grown in knowledge, experience, and love.”
She admits it’s been difficult to write during the last year since her brother Nnaemeka Charles Onyilofor passed, but feels that writing heals and now she is back to writing. The poems she read were a mix of old and new. Like most who write, she writes, stops, goes back a number of times before she’s done.
Nneka read her first poem, “Our Past” (excerpt below) which is about where she comes from, her African heritage, her own family lineage, a young women embracing her own history, her own story.
My grandmother came all the way from Fernwood, Mississippi,
to white winters in Wisconsin.
She brought with her the marks of those days.
Cotton pickin’, N-word calling, KKK.
She gave birth to my mother
Who grew up in the ghetto
and met her husband Michael
at a time when black folks
were said to be less than equal.
I was born in Wisconsin…
and am half Nigerian. Igbo.
My father is from a village called Nibo.
He died at 39…when I was 15.
When I was 23 I flew 17 hours on an airplane
across the Atlantic searching for something…
I found myself.
Words are still life memories of a significant time in history
that we now have…and I am thankful for it all…
Nneka, who is pregnant, wrote an untitled, yet to be finished poem, for her daughter expressing her love and motherly advice:
“This life is no crystal stair and it’s not supposed to be easy. You exist because so many others didn’t, wouldn’t… couldn’t make it through. Life got too difficult…but please don’t give up on me. This life will be no crystal stair…but this one thing I am certain of…you embody everything they were, with all that we are, your father and I. We are honored to have you and there is nothing more we can do…than love you and prepare you for this journey. I can’t promise you a perfect life…only a perfect love…in me.
“Dear Father” also a poem yet to be completed is for her father, Michael Onyilofor, who died at 39. She writes about being a freshman in college in her African History class, where white students knew more about African history than she did. As a young women who is half Nigerian and half African American it made her feel insecure, but her hunger for her history forged a way for her to learn and now she teaches black history!
The reason I am writing you is the reason I have to take classes such as African history to saturate myself with knowledge, just in case anyone asks me where my family is from other than Wisconsin, and I want to talk about Africa…I am searching to learn…to know you, so that I can better understand myself. If you hadn’t…left so soon… you could’ve sat beside me, to help me not notice the arrogant stares of white students that are closer to my home than I am.
You should be proud to know that I now teach African history…to predominantly white students. They still look at me with arrogant stares. But I continue to speak with conviction and confidence. I wish you could see me now.
Nneka’s brother, Nnaemeka, passed on December 18, 2009, after which it took her months to write again in her journal. She wrote “A Beautiful Life,” which is a play on the movie “A Beautiful Mind” starring John Nash, who played a character like her brother (and her father) who suffered from schizophrenia. In the African American community it is taboo to talk about mental illness, so she writes in a hope to overcome this stigma and so that others feel free to tell their stories and to seek help. When she was young, she would tell her friends that they couldn’t spend the night because she had a huge dog, a familiar story of hiding the family secret of mental illness. “A Beautiful Life” honors her brother’s life and tells of the anguish of thinking she had time to help him, but didn’t. Nneka believes she will one day work with the mentally ill; her mother is also writing a book about schizophrenia. There’s a reference to Donnie Hathaway in the poem because he had schizophrenia and his death, a fall from a building, has been described as the result of someone pushing him, but it is speculated that he jumped. This very personal poem brought emotion, sorrow, pain, could ofs, should ofs, and remarked on the demons of self:
It happens to incredibly smart people.
You go from up on cloud nine to depressed all the time
to lying in your bed, to voices in your head
to wanting to be dead.
And no one knows how it happens…
You are not the schizophrenic one but the chosen one.
The one who would give his last dollar and sacrifice his life
so that others like me can be brought to light.
“Options” Nneka’s last poem is about life’s options. Sometimes we think we don’t have options, but, of course, we do. Nneka’s home town of Milwaukee is full of strife. Her own black community reeks of instability, black businesses come and go, crime wrecks havoc, and it only seems to be getting worse. It is unnerving how an environment can affect its inhabitants. Nneka didn’t plan to go to college, even though she had a 3.9 GPA in high school. In her senior year her counselor asked her what schools she was applying to. When Nneka told her she wasn’t applying because she wasn’t going to college, her counselor stunningly replied, “WHAT!!” She had the grades, but no one in her family had gone before her, her mother hadn’t and her father struggled to accomplish an Associates Degree. The poem reaffirms that, yes, we really do have options and that we alone set our own standards.
“write in your journal/go to a museum/…read a good book/…take the stairs/plant a garden/prepare your own food/prepare yourself/ nourish your body/nurture somebody/honor your higher power/be law abiding/ support your community/conquer your destiny/ own your own business/ other…options.”
Uchechukwu Iroegbu, fellow Igbo and local photographer, offered this unsolicitated honor to Nneka, an Igbo woman in his native Igbo language:
Ezigbo ada Igbo (Good daughter of the Igbo) Ji sie ike na oga di mma (Hold on strong for it shall be well). Anyi huru gi na anya (We love you).
Petros Haile, the exec. dir. of AGR, is extremely shy by nature, but in honor to Nneka he overcome his shyness to say a few words!
Nneka contributes lots. When we started AGR she was right there with us. She writes artist profiles. She is at the center of AGR, full of energy, she keeps it going. Nneka lives diversity, look at her friends, they are from everywhere. She is a unifying force, is inclusive of everyone, knows how to make vital connections that have been crucial to AGR.. She truly is an amazing women!
In ending, yes, it is each and everyone’s duty to honor those who make this world a better place…and on February 27, 2011, African Global Roots did just that by honoring Nneka Onyilofor a well-deserving beautiful young woman who understands the necessity of moving beyond one’s comfort zone to give of herself to truly give to others, by learning, doing, striving, growing, building, and serving!
Photo by Uchefotography
AFRICAN GLOBAL ROOTS 