I Have a Red Door

I have a red door.

It’s as if a scarlet bucket of paint spilled across the front of the driveway and walked up the steps and then knocked.

I answer and invite the guest in, paint brush and all. We quickly introduce ourselves and with masks secured, proceed to paint the interior red too.  It was that kind of day. Red-shot through and through. We have learned to bleed

Cut
Sutured
Cut

Healing . . . inevitable like the red paint drying quickly when the sun’s shadow hits it before blinds are lowered.  We bow and say goodbye.

We called her Scarlett. Not red. Lips the color of persimmons and hair to match
Would be suitors feel the passion flowing in her veins
Blush just beneath the liquid honey covering her body

Hair short, twists coiled wires antennae with almost radio active frequency
Scarlett vibrated when she breathed
Her walk an electric storm

Every one kept his distance except water, who liked playing with fire

Purple cracks, broken circuits . . . melted core and cascading lava evidence of their field days . . . running and hiding. . . having fun

When she has had enough, Mama claps her hands Scarlett settles just above the horizon . . . purple fuchsia "air" kisses goodnight where the two friends met . . . they hug each other until both fall asleep into the next day

Vukani Mawethu or Mothers who sing. . .

I met Attieno at Jefferson Elementary School. I was attending Holy Names College where I was working on completing my undergraduate degree. I’d gotten divorced and was now finishing something I’d started at 17. I was 38 then. I loved going to school. I’d arranged with the children’s father to have them on the weekend’s when I was at college. I had four classes: 1 Friday night, 1 Sat. morning and 1 Sat. afternoon. During the week I also had a class. I took the children to that class. I was studying philosophy – Sartr and Kant;  Aristotle and Aquinas and Avisina.  I was waiting for the Mother Ship to land; instead bridges fell, freeways crushed cars and the World Series stopped

Everyone was watching the events in South Africa—the racist regime and the African resistance movement. I’d never thought myself a singer, but I liked to sing. Attieno kept inviting me to a rehearsal for this American choir called Vukani Mawethu which sang songs in the South African languages to bring awareness to the South African Apartheid government.

She’d ask me what I did for fun and I’d reply, I went to college. I was working on my BA and she’d reply, that’s not fun Wanda. In the meantime, Attieno gave these really fun parties where Davey D would spin the best dance music and we would dance and talk politics and just have the best time. She and her husband had a house in Berkeley. I am thinking the party was an annual New Year’s Kwanzaa party.

She told me I could bring my children [to the rehearsal]. After several months, I finally agreed to attend a rehearsal at Finn Hall in Berkeley. Fundi was the choir director. A retired art teacher in the Oakland Unified School District, she sat at the piano and ran a few scales and told me I was an alto and where to stand in the group. Everyone said hi and shook my hand and I joined Attieno in the “cool” section of the ensemble—we were the “root girls” cause we had sass and style and the most people.  We also had floaters or singers who had range and could sing multiple parts.

The kids met other children, boys and girls who showed my daughters where the cool places were in the large mansion. There was food in the kitchen where we ate before rehearsal and parents took turns watching out for the kids to make sure they were safe.

More often than not, the kids were in the room with us coloring or doing homework. This is pre-smart phones so the kids used paper to write and pencils and crayons or read books. Before long my kids knew the songs too in a variety of languages.

We wore black slacks with green or white tops.  Our sashes were green, gold and black. The choir rehearsed on Wednesdays and performed often. I remember carrying a tape recorder and a tablet to jot down notes and transcribe the languages. We often had South African visitors who would help us with pronunciation.

I had to have the songs on cue cards for the first few gigs until I learned a bit of the repertoire. It was pretty exciting. We sang for all the visiting dignitaries, and because we were in the SF Bay Area where Ron Dellums was the Congressman and Barbara Lee the Assembly person and Keith Carson the Supervisor, South Africans were welcomed with open arms and many ended up staying here or making this area their base.

There were choirs like ours in Ireland and other places in the West. Founded by James Madulope Phillips, a South African Union organizer in exile, they said he was the South African Paul Robeson. He could not return home and so used music to educate and bring attention to the civil and human rights abuses in his home country. Dr. Fania Davis invited Madulope to the Bay Area where he led workshops and put on a concert with his students—a mass choir. The choir was so successful and fun, Vukani Mawethu grew out of this event. I’d missed the concert, but I’d heard about it. When Attieno invited me to come sing with her, I couldn’t imagine where I’d get the energy from to rehearse and sing, but I did.

I didn’t date and go to clubs or bars, so Vukani Mawethu introduced me to adult fun. I went to Yoshi’s for the first time to see Pharaoh Sanders where I met Shukuru Sanders, his wife at the time. I’d never been dancing at Ashkenaz either, but this place quickly because my dance home. We’d take over the space and my big sisters would surround me and I could just feel the music and let go of the single mother blues. It was great. The kids were always welcome; however, like typical kids they didn’t want to hang out with mom.

The choir became my home—I’d found my tribe. I remember when we sang at Grace Cathedral when Bishop Desmond Tutu spoke. I also remember seeing Hugh Masekela lots of times and how intimate the settings because someone in the group always knew someone who knew someone. We went to all the concerts and when Zulu Spear defected and members of Sarafina – after I’d seen the play at a theatre in San Francisco . . . it was just so exciting to be a part of a liberation vocal orchestra. We stood with the Palestinians, the Indigenous people, the Unions . . . when the union shut down the ports on the West Coast, we were on the bill that day to sing. I went to as many events as I could. I took the children when they were young and then got babysitters and eventually left them at home. It was a ten year commitment. I remember when the elections happened and Mariam Makeba spoke about flying home after the concert to vote for the first time in her adult life. I remember seeing the polling places in South Africa and hearing from poll monitors there who lived in the Bay Area like Gerald Lenoir what they felt like and what he witnessed. Here there were polling places set up for people to cast their ballots. It was so exciting. We were able to buy ballots as souvenirs later on at a fundraiser.

Arnold White painted a picture of Mandela. He also added Fania Davis and Angela Davis to his Freedom Tree.  Clearly, the man of the hour, when Mandela got the vote and the African National Congress took over the former Apartheid Government – it was a fulfillment of all our dreams. When this hope was not fulfilled we were disappointed.

That day. The day Nelson Mandela became the first African leader of a new South Africa, we eagerly awaited his world tour itinerary. Oakland was on the list for a stop. Immediately there began to be rehearsals for a mass choir performance. We rehearsed at Allen Temple Baptist Church where Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith is now pastor emeritus.  Vukani was the lead choir and we led the rehearsals with others.

The day of the concert we sang at the very full Oakland Coliseum. We danced into the stadium while in other aisles drummers performed. I have yet to see footage. I heard from my children and friends (they were seated with) that we looked good.

We were embraced here, so when I went to South Africa on the ANC’s centennial, I was surprised at the reception: sucking teeth and hands out. This was when I was at the transit station in Johannesberg at the information booth. However, when I was with friends or friends of friends like Salelo Maredi and Maisha Jenkins it was like old times.

It was so nice to see the land I’d worked to liberate. The Anti-Apartheid museum in Johannesburg was amazing—I was unable to see Mrs. Mandela but we drove by her home. I wasn’t able to get a press pass for Oprah’s girl’s high school graduation either and disappointedly I wasn’t able to get the the Centennial Ceremony in . . . but I got to hang out with Selelo and meet musicians and artists at the National Museum and went to the place in Pretoria where the women tore their passes in half.

My parenting relationship was not one where I could trade and take advantage of opportunities to travel to South Africa with Vukani Mawethu, but I did get there eventually years later with my younger daughter after a trip to Madagascar for a month.

I really wanted to go to Boswana and Mozambique and Swaziland. Next time.

Dumile and Elouise had a group called Amandla Poets. Everyone performed at Ashkenaz or Yoshi’s or the Herbst Theatre or Zellerbach Hall . . . even Stern Grove or the Greek Theatre, the Great American Music Hall or what became the Justice League. There were outside concerts too: Festival at the Lake, concerts at the park at the Embarcadero and later at the Port of Oakland.

Politics and Art waltzed together. We had political education classes or workshops and homework. When someone came here from abroad we got together over a meal and listened to him or her speak. When we sang at these events, we were conversant in what was happening on the ground and could speak intelligently about the boycott or sanctions against companies and corporations that supported the Apartheid regime.  I’d already gotten my kids used to boycotting the grapes and strawberry companies that did not support the United Farm Workers Union, so they were used to reading labels and watching me do research on who owned Lever Brothers, Bank or America . . .

Zionism and Apartheid were twins and we did not support the economics of either. My children learned early the link between economics and power. The people could stop a giant simply by stopping the fuel – dollars.