Bücher von Kwasi Konadu

A View from The East represents a second edition built upon expanded archival research and a contextualizing of the organization within the African American civil rights and black power movements. At the heart of The East was Uhuru Sasa Shule, an independent African-centered school whose curriculum and pedagogy were rooted in Kawaida philosophy and concepts of education for self-reliance. In addition, The East became a center for the arts. On weekends, it served as a literary salon and hosted concerts by black musicians. Many of the great jazz artists and poets performed there, as it became a well-known and highly sought-after venue. With fresh insight and great detail, Kwasi Konadu excavates the history of The East, exploring the confluence of cultural nationalism, education, economic self-sufficiency, and the arts during the Black Power period. Drawing on extensive interviews and primary research, Konadu vividly brings to life the people and events that shaped this remarkable institution and outlines the rich lessons it provides for future community building organizations.

Using diverse and new sources (archaeological, biomedical, climatological, linguistic, ethno-musical, oral and documentary sources in various languages), this groundbreaking study tells the story of a West African people, the origins and character of their cultural forms and ideas, and how these Akan, or "pioneering peoples," shaped the politics and societies of their homeland as well as the European colonies that received their enslaved members. The book demonstrates how these peoples organized themselves into clans connected by shared sociocultural features, formed polities, fought wars yet engaged in extensive diplomacy, traded with yet competed against one another, and ultimately their members became a force in the Americas, despite their relatively small numbers. As enslaved, marooned, or legally emancipated peoples, they foregrounded and yet went beyond the diasporic themes of maroonage, resistance, and freedom. Locating the Akan variable in the African diasporic equation allows scholars and students of Africa and the Americas to better understand how African histories and diasporic experiences cohere and how both are still evolving.