A Night in Roxbury: Celebrating the life and Legacy of Baba Askia Toure
Last week I had the pleasure of gathering in community with other Black Bostonians to celebrate the life and legacy of revolutionary veteran and artist Askia Toure. Askia has been in my life for a long time. He is the mentor to my mentor, and so I have come to glean much of what I know and value from his guidance and insights - belonging to his intellectual line. Askia is a founding member of the Black arts movement with figures such as Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou and others. Askia has been part of organizations such as R.A.M. and SNCC and has given his life to the freedom of Black people. Askia also serves as a Babalawu of Ifa, and does work to connect Black Bostonians with their diasporic heritage and spiritual self.
We gathered in Roxbury, the historic heart of Black Boston at an Afro-centric gallery space where we all would partake in a live reading of Baba Askia’s short story (turned play) Of Father’s and Son’s. I had the the pleasure of reading the role of Clyde, a character based on Askia’s father. The story follows a generational struggle between a traditionalist father and his son who has embraced revolutionary Afrikanist politics. The two do not see eye to eye concerning the solution to the plight of Black people in the U.S. The story is about family, love, contention, understanding and the patience needed to mend generational divides. Askia is a living legend and is one of few living revolutionaries veterans within Boston.
Very fortunate for me and for future generations, Baba Askia is featured within the HistoryMakers digital archive. I started my search by searching his name as I was already able to find him much earlier in the year when I did a general search of HistoryMakers from Boston. In his interview Baba Askia recounts his principals the largest influence on his artistic and intellectual work stating, “As I said we were not only nationalistic and wanting black power, we're also pan-Africanist and we had learned that from [Marcus] Garvey and Dr. [W.E.B.] Du Bois and all of our great leaders and we saw that we were fighting for the liberation of African people throughout the world and we were proud of that and then we had our elders like Dr. [John Henrik] Clarke and Queen Mother Moore and the rest of them, you know encouraging us and stuff and the, the writings of Dr. Du Bois and Paul Robeson and stuff and so you know our whole thing was let's get it on you know and-- 'cause we felt that you know we were doing the work of our ancestors you know so we don't care what, and so we made it very clear--'cause a lot of frightened Negroes, "We gon' get in trouble". Like Brother Malcolm [X] said, "Well you were born in trouble," you know, they enslaved us for over three hundred years, what kinda worse trouble can you be in.”
Baba Askia is a treasure of Black Boston and continues well into his high years to educate and give knowledge to the youth, and I, like many others, am blessed to be a recipient.
