Welcome to the Web page of Kuumba Events and Communications. This page serves as a jumping-off point for several initiatives that have worked to bring positive change to our community over the past twenty years. The concept of Kuumba comes from the Kiswahili language and is inspired by the Afrikan-American Kwanzaa celebration invented by Dr. Maulana Karenga in the 1960’s. Kuumba is the principle of Creativity, “To do what we can, in the way that we can, to leave our world more beautiful and beneficial than we found it.”
Kuumba Events and Communications is comprised of the following divisions:
KUUMBAEvents: an event-planning group which occasionally sponsors community meetings, parties and cultural events.
KUUMBAMUSIC: a disc jockey and live sound-reinforcement company that concentrates on music from the Afrikan American tradition. Our motto is “Exploring the Spectrum in Black Music from Afrika, the Americas and the Diaspora”. KUUMBAMUSIC is available to help plan and perform at parties, receptions, lectures and cultural events. More information can be found on the Music page.
KUUMBAReport Online: our initial foray into the “communications” aspects of our company name, KUUMBAReport Newsletter was published as a small, hard-copy community paper in the Baltimore-Washington, DC area from 1997 to 2011. Over 44 issues, we examined issues such as Pan-Afrikan organizing, political prisoners, police misconduct, political corruption, Afrikan issues, global war, historical issues that are little-known or poorly-understood, and activists who are working to heal the suffering and divisions within and between our communities. After the newsletter ceased publication in 2011 due to financial concerns, the Web site https://kuumbareport.com was launched a few years later. On that site, most of the original issues of KUUMBAReport can be found in PDF format, and regular blog posts discuss many of the issues of the day as they impact on the Afrikan, Afrikan-American and global communities.
WorldHouse Music and Sound: a subsidiary of KUUMBAMUSIC which concentrates on music from around the world. This was inspired by our discovery of the beauty that exists in music from Afrika, South America, the Caribbean, Asia and Europe. Much of the music here is also available through KUUMBAMUSIC.
What’s New
Coming up on Saturday, October 12, 2024 at the Temple of New African Thought (TNAT), the Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition (MPACC) will hold our third Pan Afrikan Community Town Hall Meeting of the year. Our theme will be a look at the electoral process and how we are approaching it as a community, and we have named it the “Electoral Poly-Tricks Pan Afrikan Community Town Hall Meeting”. For more information about the Town Hall Meeting and how to attend, click here.
“The Revolution Is Black Love” features Grandmother Walks On Water, Wednesday, October 9, 2024
“The Revolution Is Black Love” (Wednesday afternoons at 3:00 PM ET) features frequent guest, Choctaw Elder Grandmother Walks On Water on Wednesday, October 9 on HANDRadio (https://handradio.org). She discusses the topic “Healing the Heart Chakra” with host Sis. Tomiko.
“The Revolution Is Black Love” is broadcast every Wednesday at 3:00 PM Eastern Time (United States) on HANDRadio, https://handradio.org. After broadcast, the show can be heard by clicking below. This and previous episodes of “The Revolution Is Black Love” can be heard by visiting the Media Pages of KUUMBAReport Online (https://kuumbareport.com/about-kuumbareport-newsletter/multimedia/) and the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (https://srdcinternational.org/audio-visual-media/).
To listen to the Wednesday, October 9 show, click here.
The Ancestors’ Call: Three Mighty Cultural Icons, James Earl Jones, Frankie Beverly, Sergio Mendes
We lost three icons of the cultural world this past week: Brazilian bossa nova/samba/jazz/R&B legend Sergio Mendes (September 5), legendary actor James Earl Jones (September 9) and the great Frankie Beverly (September 10). No tribute can truly do these great men justice, but we offer our small contribution here.
The Wednesday, September 11 edition of “The R-evolution Is Black Love” features an interview with Baba Nati, proprietor of Everyone’s Place, located on North Avenue in the Penn-North neighborhood of West Baltimore.
Everyone’s Place has been a staple of the Black Cultural Community in Baltimore City for several decades, and Baba Nati or recognized across the city and throughout the state of Maryland as a community treasure. Show host Sis. Tomiko talks to him about his lifetime of work as an educator and activist in the Baltimore-area Pan Afrikan Community.
“The R-evolution Is Black Love” can be heard every Wednesday afternoon at 3:00 PM on Hand Radio (https://handradio.org). After the show airs, the show can be listened to in-demand in Hand Radio’s site as well as an updated version of this post and the Media Pages of KUUMBAReportOnline (https://kuumbareport.com) and the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (https://srdcinternational.org).
Garvey Day 2024 in Various Parts of the Diaspora
Saturday, August 17 marked the birthday of The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey (17 August 1887 – 10 June 1940), the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). All around the world, Afrikan People celebrate his birth on this day. Here we share the announcements of just a few of the commemorations of The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey on this day.
The Maisha Washington Education Foundation Scholarship Fund
Sehwah-Liberia, Inc. and the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) are announcing the Maisha Washington Education Foundation Scholarship for high school students in Liberia.
The Scholarship Program represents part of SRDC’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the Pan-African Diaspora and the African Community on the Continent, and Sehwah-Liberia’s continuing commitment to lift up the people of Liberia as the country continues to rise up from decades of civil war.
The Scholarship Program is named after Mama Maisha Washington, who as a member of the Maryland SRDC Organization and the Maryland Council of Elders (MCOE) had led efforts to launch a successful 2020 Pan African Summer Camp in Liberia, administered and taught by teachers in Liberia and the United States. Mama Maisha was also one of the leaders of the Pan-African Library Project, which will build the first-ever public library in Monrovia, Liberia, and which will primarily serve the countries of Liberia, Guinea-Conakry, Siera Leone and Cote D’Ivoire.
Mama Maisha transitioned to the Honored Ancestors in October 2020.
The initial goal of the Maisha Washington Education Foundation Scholarship is to grant educational scholarships to 150 high school students (9th, 10th, 11th and 12th graders) in Liberia during 2022, and to expand the Scholarship Program from there. Also, in support of the Pan-African Library Project, Liberian college-age students will be trained in Library Science to equip them to manage and operate the library once it is completed.
Another objective of the Scholarship Program will be to build relationships between Scholarship donors and students in Liberia who will benefit from the Scholarship Program. SRDC has included a Scholarship Program Donor Form, which can be completed by checking out the SRDC post at https://srdcinternational.org/maisha-washington-education-foundation-scholarship-fund/ or by visiting the Maisha Washington Education Foundation Web page at https://srdcinternational.org/scholarship/.
To make a tax-deductible donation to the Maisha Washington Education Foundation Scholarship Program using PayPal, please visit the SRDC post at https://srdcinternational.org/maisha-washington-education-foundation-scholarship-fund/ or the Maisha Washington Education Foundation Web page at https://srdcinternational.org/scholarship/.
For more information and updates, check out our post or the Web site https://srdcinternational.org/scholarship/.