Askia M. Touré

Askia Muhammad Touré (Roland Snellings) (born October 13, 1938 in Raleigh, North Carolina) is an African-American poet, essayist, political editor, and leading voice of the Black Arts Movement.

Life

He served in the United States Air Force from 1956 to 1959. He took art classes at the Dayton Art Institute. He moved to New York City and joined the Art Students League, and the Umbra poets. He participated in the Fulton Art Fair in Brooklyn, in 1961 and 1962, and the Black Arts Movement. In 1961, he protested the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, at the United Nations, with Amiri Baraka, Calvin Hicks, Aishah Rahman, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Alex Prempe, Mae Mallory, and Maya Angelou.^[1]

In 1962, he became an illustrator for Umbra magazine, a staff member with The Liberator magazine and a contributor to Freedomways. He was a part of the Atlanta staff of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and joined the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) in the Spring of 1964.^[2] In 1965, he founded Afro World, and organized the Harlem Uptown Youth Conference. He also participated in the rise of the Black Panther Party and helped write SNCC's 1966 "Black Power Position Paper."^[3]

In 1967, he joined the faculty at San Francisco State University with Nathan Hare, and taught African history in the first African Studies Program. He organized the 1984 Nile Valley Conference, and helped found the Atlanta chapter of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations.^[4]

He resides and teaches in Boston, Massachusetts. He was a writer-in-residence in Boston at the now defunct Ogunaaike Gallery in Boston's South End.^[5] He is currently working on a film about the Black Arts Movement.^[6][7][8]

He is a former editor of the Journal of Black Poetry, Black Dialogue and Black Star.

Awards

• 1989 American Book Award
• 2000 Stephen E. Henderson Poetry Award for Dawnsong
• 1996 Gwendolyn Brooks Lifetime Achievement Award from the Gwendolyn Brooks Institute like in Chicago, Illinois.

Works

• African Affirmations: Songs for Patriots: New Poems, 1994 to 2004. Africa World Press. 2007. ISBN 978-1-59221-554-6.
• Dawnsong!: The Epic Memory of Askia Touré. Third World Press. 1999. ISBN 978-0-88378-209-5.
• From the Pyramids to the Projects: Poems of Genocide & Resistance!. Africa World Press. 1990. ISBN 978-0-86543-135-5.
• Juju: Magic Songs for the Black Nation. Third World Press. 1972.
• Songhai. Songhai Press. 1972.

Anthologies

• Keith Gilyard, ed. (1997). "Azuri". Spirit & Flame: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0-8156-2731-9.

References

1. Imamu Amiri Baraka, William J. Harris, eds. (2000). The LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader. Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 978-1-56025-238-2.
2. Jeffrey Ogbonna Green Ogbar (2004). Black Power: radical politics and African American identity. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-7957-9.
3. "Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee - Position Paper: The Basis of Black Power". The Sixties Project.
4. http://www.ascac.org/atldeclaration.html
5. aalbc.com
6. Askia Touré biography at The History Makers.
7. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, Trudier Harris, eds. (2001). The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-513883-2.
8. Askia Touré Biography - Early Life, Developed Poetic Voice, Found Political and Religious Identity, A "Griot"

External links

• "Author's website"
• Joanne V. Gabbin, ed. (1999). "Conversation". The Furious Flowering of African American Poetry. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-1841-9.
• Joyce Ann Joyce (2005). Black Studies as Human Studies: critical essays and interviews. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-6161-7.