107th birthday of Léon-Gontram Damas

(Born 28 March 1912, Cayenne, French-occupied Guiana, east of Suriname, S America)

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

POET, editor, philosopher, academic, co-founder, with Léopold Sédar Senghor and Aimé Césaire, of the 1930s-1940s “negritude” intellectual movement of African-peoples affirmation in Paris, France, and whose demonstrable volume of poetry, Pigments (1937), gives notice of the engaging trajectory of the movement:

… my hatred thrived on the margins of culture

the margin of theories the margin of idle talk

with which they stuffed me since birth

even though all in me aspired to be [African]

while they ransacked my Africa

(Andrew Hill Sextet, “Spectrum” [personnel: Hill, piano; Kenny Dorham, trumpet; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, flute; Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone;  Richard Davis, bass; Tony Williams, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 21 March 1964])

*****Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019) and co-author,

with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why #DonaldTrump is #great for #Africa (2018)

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

106th birthday of Léon-Gontram Damas

(B 28Mar1912, Cayenne, French-occupied Guiana, S America)

POET, editor, philosopher, academic, co-founder with Léopold Sédar Senghor and Aimé Césaire of the 1930s-1940s “negritude” intellectual movement of African affirmation in Paris, France, and whose demonstrable volume of poetry, Pigments (1937), gives notice of the engaging trajectory of the movement:

… my hatred thrived on the margins of culture

the margin of theories the margin of idle talk

with which they stuffed me since birth

even though all in me aspired to be [African]

while they ransacked my Africa

(Andrew Hill Sextet, “Spectrum” [personnel: Hill, piano; Kenny Dorham, trumpet; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, flute; Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone;  Richard Davis, bass; Tony Williams, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 21 March 1964])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

115th birthday of Arna Bontemps

(Born 13 October 1902, Alexandria, Louisiana, US)

AWARD-WINNING prolific poet, novelist, children’s writer, editor, biographer, historian, and librarian, whose work plays a cardinal role in the emergence of contemporary African American letters

(Andrew Hill Quartet, “Cantarnos” [personnel: Hill, piano; Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone;  Richard Davis, bass; Roy Haynes, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 8 November 1963])

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe

105th birthday of Léon-Gontram Damas

(B 28Mar1912, Cayenne, French-occupied Guiana, S America)

Poet, editor, philosopher, academic, co-founder with Léopold Sédar Senghor and Aimé Césaire of the 1930s-1940s “negritude” intellectual movement of African affirmation in Paris, France, and whose demonstrable volume of poetry, Pigments (1937), gives notice of the engaging trajectory of the movement:

… my hatred thrived on the margins of culture

the margin of theories the margin of idle talk

with which they stuffed me since birth

even though all in me aspired to be [African]

while they ransacked my Africa

(Andrew Hill Sextet, “Spectrum” [personnel: Hill, piano; Kenny Dorham, trumpet; Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, flute; Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone;  Richard Davis, bass; Tony Williams, drums; recorded: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US, 21 March 1964])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe

85th birthday of Stuart Hall

(Born 3 February 1932, Kingston, Jamaica)

One of African British preeminent intellectuals – cultural theorist, editor, academic, radio & television analyst

(Miles Davis Quintet, “Sid’s ahead” [personnel: Davis, trumpet, piano; Julian  “Cannonball” Adderley, alto saxophone; John Coltrane, tenor saxophone; Paul Chambers, bass; Philly Joe Jones;, drums; recorded: Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York, US,  4 March 1958])

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe