With Kora and Words, West Philly Stands with West African Detainees by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

 

I’m excited to share that my article about last Saturday’s letter-writing event to support our detained West African neighbors has just been published in today's ( Sunday ) Philadelphia Inquirer.  Also, checkout the beautiful photography of Yaprak Ozdemir Soysal.  Here is the link: https://share.inquirer.com/fLf20r  

Please consider donating to Yero's  GoFundCampaign to support his legal defense.  To learn more and to donate, here is the link:  https://gofund.me/ea76afe0

Keeping Hope Alive, One Letter at a Time by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

I’ve been a little out of circulation this past week due to some hip trouble, but I’ve also been quietly sitting and moving with the joy of what many accomplished together last Saturday.

Last week, more than 50 heartfelt letters were written to Yero and other detainees. I’ve been mailing them in small batches so that every few days Yero receives new words of encouragement. He received the first batch on Thursday and, as you can imagine, he was thrilled as were the other detainees who received letters as well.

I keep thinking back to when I was a kid, which seems like a million years ago, of how important letter writing was to me. I was particular about stationery and what kind of pen I used and my handwriting style. I put so much intention and care into my letter-writing . Whether I was in Shriners Hospital for long stays, or splitting summers between Grandma McBride in Pittsburgh and family in North Carolina, I loved writing to stay connected.

And later, when I left Côte d’Ivoire abruptly after 10 years, what I most longed for were the letters I’d left behind; those little time capsules of friendship, love, and memory. My dad was such a thoughtful letter writer, and I’m grateful that a few of his letters made it into the photo albums I grabbed when I was evacuated. 

I share this because I can only imagine the joy Yero and the others feel as they open your words, each letter a thread of connection, a reminder that they are not forgotten.

Stay tuned! Tomorrow I’ll share a big surprise connected to last week’s event.

Thank you for helping us keep hope alive, one letter at a time and/or one donation at a time. Please donate and/or continue to share the campaign. Yero is still awaiting a hearing date.

Thank you. Here is the link:  https://gofund.me/ea76afe0

A Library in Detention, A Window to the World by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

 

Artwork-Almon Adeluwoye

This morning, something unusual happened. Yero called me at the start of the day instead of in the evening, when he normally gives updates, keeps up connections with the outside world, and practices his English. His voice was almost giddy. After a very enthusiastic “hello,” he said, “Just listen to this…” and began reading aloud in English, with pride, from what turned out to be Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. As a reminder, Yero is primarily a French/Fulani/Arabic speaker. I usually communicate with him in my very basic, halting, almost cringe-worthy French.

It turns out this was one of two books he checked out from the detention library. He read a couple of pages and did remarkably well. Our little team is sending him a French/English dictionary today so he can keep going.

For someone who once worked 12+ hour days at two jobs, carving out time for English study, let alone leisure reading, was nearly impossible. Like many asylum seekers, his schedule left no room for rest, let alone reading. I had often urged him to take an English Language class at the library, but survival always came first. Now, ironically, detention has given him a window of time and a reminder that reading and leisure are not luxuries, but essential ways to nurture the self and imagine a future.

Yero himself said he can better appreciate how reading isn’t just for school students. As an adult, he sees its value and now he wants to visit Maine, inspired by Stephen King’s stories and learn more about American history.

Your support makes these small victories possible, from books in hand to hope in voice. Thank you for helping Yero hold on to dignity and discovery in the hardest of places. Do support his GoFundMe campaign for his legal defense. Here is the link: https://gofund.me/ea76afe0 and/or share the campaign with friends.

Songs Across Borders: How Love, Loss, and Community Shape My Advocacy by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

*Support the GoFundMe Campaign! In today’s appeal I want to share why I feel so protective and maternal toward Philadelphia’s African communities. When I lived in Côte d’Ivoire, I was surrounded by care not only from my husband Auguste, but from his family, his community, and even strangers. Many of you know the tragic circumstances of Auguste’s untimely death, but until then, I was enveloped in a net of love and belonging.

 My Father-in-Law- Jean Kouassi Ahebee

On this Labor Day, I especially remember my father-in-law, Jean Kouassi Ahebee who was a former Member of the National Assembly and head of a major labor union. I first met him during my three-month exploratory trip to Côte d’Ivoire. Papa Jean wanted me to know his country, its beauty, and its people.He arranged for me to see the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, which surpasses St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican in size, and then to visit what was, at that time, the largest mosque in the country. He took great pride in his nation’s tradition of different ethnic and religious groups living side by side and intermarrying. From there, he took me to the family’s ancestral village, where he had planned something extraordinary.

That evening, dinner was not served inside the house but under a vast, open-air pavilion. The tables were covered in hand-dyed batik cloths and set with beautiful dishes alongside bottles of wine and refreshments. At first, I thought it was simply a family meal. But as the evening unfolded, many, many people arrived.Then I noticed men setting up microphones at the front of the space. As they drew closer, I whispered to Auguste that they looked so familiar. While they arranged themselves at the front, I turned back to chatting with the aunties, with Auguste serving as principle translator. *Côte d’Ivoire's national language is French. Then, suddenly, I heard a few juke joint-like thump on an electric piano, and the group, in the front, stood in full choir formation. And in English, they burst into “Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep,” bopping and swaying like an old-school Black American gospel choir, belting the song out with full force.

Me with my father-in-law on the right and one of his labor union associates.

Papa Jean had quietly arranged for a Liberian choir composed of men and women who themselves had fled the civil war in Liberia to sing the songs of my home: spirituals, jazz standards, and classics by Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole. It was his way of saying: You belong. You are seen. You are cared for here. Out under the West African stars, we were all together, indigenous Africans and descendants of the formerly enslaved, united by a love story that bridged oceans and histories.( In time, after I resettled in Côte d’Ivoire, Liberians became some of my dearest friends who welcomed me, stood beside me, and later surrounded me with song and comfort during the painful days of Auguste’s funeral gatherings.)

The next day, when we arrived in Bouaké at Papa Jean’s home, I felt the same message in his surroundings. His house spoke of pride and history. His ethnic group was Baoulé. In his massive dining room, above a long buffet sideboard, hung a striking painting of Queen Pokou, who was the Ashanti princess who fled Ghana during dynastic conflict and became the founding queen of the Baoulé people of Côte d’Ivoire. Her story, both history and legend, tells of her perilous migration, and of her ultimate sacrifice of giving up her child so her followers could cross the Comoé River to safety.

Queen Pokou was a migrant, too, fleeing violence, leading her people toward survival. Her story hangs in my memory alongside Papa Jean’s acts of kindness, the Liberian choir’s voices rising under the night sky, and the way I was embraced by a family and community not my own.

An artistic interpretation of the Queen Pokou legend( not the piece referenced in the Papa Jean's home); *could not id artist.

This is why I fight so fiercely for Yero and for the African migrants in Philadelphia today. Like Queen Pokou, like the Liberian refugees who once sang for me and later comforted me, like all who are forced to leave home for survival, Yero deserves the chance at safety, belonging, and dignity.

To learn more and to support his GoFundMe campaign, here is the link: https://gofund.me/ea76afe0

Keepers of Light: In Praise of Librarians by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

 

More than an image, this self-portrait of Patsy, is a testament to a life devoted to books, ideas, and community.

Too often we take for granted the spaces we enter without much thought, as if they are simply our right. That’s how I’ve always felt about libraries. I am especially proud of Philadelphia’s long history of free public libraries which is a tradition that is far from the norm in many places.

I think often of Patsy Kiros, this beautiful and elegant (without ever being stuffy) African-American woman from Toledo, Ohio, whose path I was lucky enough to cross in Côte d’Ivoire. Patsy was married to Mr. Kiros, an Eritrean gentleman. They had lived in Ethiopia during a very difficult time, before Eritrea gained its independence, and later moved to Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, where he represented Ethiopian Airlines, for the West African hub. Patsy became the chief librarian at the International Community School of Abidjan.

When I arrived there, still a new wife and mother after Sojourner’s birth, disoriented as a writer and teacher, Patsy welcomed me. She visited my classroom to understand my teaching style and what resources I needed, and then she invited me into her home. Over those lovely, intimate dinners with other American women and woman from literally across the globe, she gently asked me what I was most passionate about. Over many years, she did what true librarians do best, she listened, observed, researched, and then placed in my hands books, articles, and resources that connected directly to my intellectual life. Through Patsy, we never felt cut off from the cultural and academic explorations happening in the States and around the world. Even our awareness of Black arts and entertainment was kept alive through Ebony Magazine gatherings( *smile-those Ebony parties), where we shared issues that might have been months or years old, but still tethered us to home.

With Patsy, whose presence and passion for sharing knowledge shaped my journey as a writer and teacher.

Years later, when our lives were forever changed by political turmoil and the deaths of our husbands when she returned to Toledo and me to Philadelphia,Patsy’s generosity continued. When my first book of poetry was published, she immediately bought 50 copies for her book club and brought me, all expenses paid, to Toledo in 2005 to read at schools and community events. Mona Washington accompanied me on that unforgettable trip. Mona R. Washington

Before Patsy’s death in 2020, she knew her time was near. She sent me some of her favorite books and a self-portrait, which now hangs in my living room. Her eternal presence reminds me daily of the bounty of books, the joy of sharing ideas, and the way librarians can transform lives.

I thought of Patsy yesterday when Yero (Haj) told me he had finally worked up the courage to ask if there was a library in the detention center. I had recommended he inquire. The very idea of a space offering books for free was almost unimaginable to him. And yet, when he learned there was one, he was over the moon. He checked out two books; one even in French. What struck him most was not only that he was allowed to borrow them, but the kindness of the librarian.

In that moment, even within confinement, he felt a door open.

We can all be that kind of door for Yero ( Haj). Right now, he needs our support. Here’s how you can help:

Donate to his GoFundMe campaign: every dollar goes directly to his legal team fighting for his release. Here is the link: https://gofund.me/ea76afe0

*Shout to Mrs. Nargis Bhaloo; she and Patsy were a force as librarians at I.C.S.A. ICSA family do share any memories you have of Patsy.

Standing in Solidarity with African Detainees; Invisible in this ICE Crisis by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

With Phyllis, in Philipsburg, PA, standing in solidarity with hundreds of protesters just a few  miles from the Moshannon ICE Detention Center.

On Sunday, Phyllis and I traveled from Philadelphia to join hundreds of Pennsylvanians in Philipsburg, PA, near the Moshannon Valley Processing Center. Located about 4 hours from Philadelphia, Moshannon is the largest ICE detention facility in the Northeast and it is run for profit by the notorious GEO Group. It is here that our friend, Haj (Yero), a Mauritanian asylum seeker, is being held as he awaits his hearing.

Our journey was organized by Reclaim Philadelphia, a grassroots community organization working to build political power for everyday people. While the trip was long, the purpose was urgent: to stand in solidarity with those ICE has locked away, and to say loudly that they are not forgotten.

Many ICE detainees have lived and worked legally in the U.S.  African migrants , like our friend Haj, are being seized during their annual check-ins.

Phyllis speaks to a reporter, sharing how African migrants, many who live and work in our Philadelphia communities, are being disappeared by ICE.

For us, this fight is personal. As elder Black women, we carry the lived experience of knowing the “push factors” that propel migration. My paternal grandfather fled racial terror in South Carolina after the lynching of Anthony Crawford in 1916. He was very much a part of the Great Migration that brought millions of Black people north. Phyllis and I also come from a community devastated by mass incarceration, where generations of neighbors have known the pain of confinement and separation. These histories have made us deeply sympathetic to the plight of asylum seekers like Haj.

Too often, the public face of opposition to ICE detention is not people like us. But here we are, compelled by memory and solidarity.

Just a few weeks ago, the Germantown community rose up in defense of another detained neighbor, longtime resident and business owner Anou Vongbandith, also being held at Moshannon. Hundreds of his neighbors packed the streets demanding his release. Their outpouring of love was powerful.

A supporter of Anou Vongbandith holds a sign calling for his release and return to his community.

But Phyllis and I knew there were others at Moshannon whose stories rarely reach the public eye: West African men, many French-speaking or speakers of Indigenous languages, who feel abandoned and forgotten. ICE is woefully unequipped to provide interpreters for these detainees, leaving them further isolated. Families often fear sending money or making contact, worried that any link to their loved one will bring ICE scrutiny on themselves.

So we try, in our own ways, to bridge the gap. We participate in Drexel University’s Inside/Outside Prison Letter Writing Project, where dozens of students recently wrote letters of encouragement to Haj and his fellow African detainees. When Haj called to tell me he had received the letters, he sounded like a giddy child, thrilled that someone had remembered him. In turn, when we or others send money for his commissary, Haj shares it with fellow detainees who receive nothing from the outside.

Haj’s story is emblematic of the injustice of this system. Before his detention, he was a worker in a University City restaurant, where he had once served at a fundraiser hosted by Reclaim Philadelphia. It was an event featuring speakers like District Attorney Larry Krasner. Haj was moved by the gathering, its inclusivity, and its vision for justice. He longed to participate in such civic life himself. Instead, during his annual ICE check-in, an appointment he had attended faithfully each year while legally living and working in the U.S., he was suddenly detained.

This sign reflects the urgency and moral weight of this struggle.

He is seeking protection from Mauritania, where dark-skinned Africans remain oppressed by a light-skinned Arab-Berber elite, trapped in a hierarchy that has denied them freedom for generations. Though slavery was officially abolished in 1981, it continues in practice, and those who resist face persecution.

After Saturday’s rally, Haj called me while we were boarding the bus to return home. The bus of protestors shouted to Haj, who was juts a few miles from where our bus was parked, “We are with you,” they told him, joining the voices of State Representative Christopher Rabb and Reclaim leaders Seth Anderson-Oberman and Jayson Massey, who helped to organize and participated in Sunday’s protest. 

A protester in Philipsburg reminds us that migration is human, not a crime.

We came home exhausted, but with renewed conviction. Standing with detainees like Haj is not charity. It is solidarity, rooted in our own histories of forced migration and incarceration. And we will keep showing up until justice is won.

We have also started a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for his legal defense. Donations go directly to his lawyer and are being used to hire an asylum expert, cover translation of official documents from Mauritania, and pay for filings and other case-related expenses.

To learn more and to contribute to Haj’s legal defense, please visit the GoFundMe page:

https://gofund.me/ea76afe0

Letters of Joy, Stories of Urgency by Octavia McBrid-Ahebee

Slavery's Last Stronghold

Click here to view: Slavery's Last Stronghold

Yesterday I received good news that lifted my heart. Yero told me he received the letters from the Drexel University students who regularly participate in the Inside/Outside Prison Letter Writing Project. Some of you may remember when I shared Yero’s story with them and asked that they write to him and other African detainees.

The students did just that.

Drexel students write letters of encouragement for Yero and other detained asylum seekers.

When Yero shared the news with me, he sounded like a giddy kid. He was so full of excitement and joy. Their words of encouragement reached him, and he felt remembered, cared for, and human. These letters are proof of how small acts of solidarity can bring light into the darkest places.

But while letters bring hope, they don’t erase the reality that forced Yero to flee Mauritania in the first place. Many of you have asked, what exactly is happening in Mauritania? To help answer that, I want to share this short CNN documentary( * See above ) that exposes the persistence of slavery there, despite it being officially abolished in 1981. Please take a few minutes to watch.

This is the system Yero is escaping . It is one where dark-skinned Africans remain oppressed and targeted by the light-skinned Arab-Berber elite, trapped in a hierarchy that has denied them freedom and dignity for generations.

By supporting Yero’s legal defense fund, we are not only giving him the chance at freedom here, but we are also sending a message: we see, we understand, and we will act.

Please share this campaign with your networks, donate if you can, and help us widen the circle of care. Letters of encouragement give hope. Donations for legal defense create change. Together, they make freedom possible.

Go Fund Me link: https://gofund.me/ea76afe0

A Legacy of Radical Compassion by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

 

Me and my mom, Sallie — my first teacher in radical generosity.

*Support the GoFundMe campaign!

My mother, Sallie, though fundamentalist in her faith, was a radical woman in her acts of kindness and generosity. Here is one example across a lifetime. I remember so vividly the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. These were dark times. Every sector of society was impacted, but Black men living with or dying from AIDS were especially abandoned. Resources were scarce, and fear and stigma were everywhere. People living with AIDS were treated like lepers to be avoided.

One day, I came to my family home, after being away for a period, to find my mother in the kitchen with her Dick Gregory cookbook, juicing carrots into mason jars and baking her famous apple pies. She asked me to go with her on an errand. I didn’t know where we were headed until she pulled up to a house in West Philadelphia known as Calcutta House.

Inside were four or five beautiful Black men, who were thin, frail, some in wheelchairs, all clearly ill. This place was a kind of hospice where people came to die. When my mom walked in, whispers filled the room: “Miss Sallie, Miss Sallie is here.” Some even called her Mom. A nun appeared to help her carry in the pies and juice, and soon one gentleman asked for one of her famous scalp rubs. My mother washed her hands, slipped on latex gloves, and with extraordinary care, began massaging his head.

We were in a living room space, and while my mother worked that gentleman's head, she told the residents about her flower garden, the birds she had watched that morning in her birdbath, and the pies she baked for them. She refused to let their world be defined only by fear and sorrow. She came there with her singular, Sallie joy.

She asked for the Langston Hughes book she had given them, and one of the men went to retrieve it. After finishing the scalp massage, she removed her gloves, sat down among them, and read aloud one of her favorite poems by Hughes- "The Negro Mother". She had discovered Hughes when I was a student at Overbrook Elementary, under the guidance of the great teacher Mrs. Rose Martin. Some of the residents also took turns, reading aloud passages they loved or reciting poems they remembered learning in school. For a while, the room was filled not with fear, but with words, memory, and the affirmations of poetry.

Before leaving, she promised to go to Sears, to buy them a birdbath for their yard, so they too could begin their mornings watching the antics of birds. And she did.

My mother’s compassion was radical because it defied fear as was the compassion of those devoted nuns. At a time when people recoiled from touching those living with AIDS, my mother, hugged them, massaged their scalps, baked them pies, and read them poetry. She believed joy was a right, even for those whom society had abandoned.

Her example reminds me why I fight today for Yero and other detained Black immigrants. Too often, their stories go untold, and they are left invisible. But just like my mother showed, dignity, compassion, and solidarity are not optional; they are acts of survival.

“We are each other’s harvest:

we are each other’s business:

we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”

— Gwendolyn Brooks

Please support Yero’s campaign and learn about his fight for his freedom. Share it, donate if you can, and help us widen the circle of care.

https://gofund.me/ea76afe0

Neighbors, Not Strangers: Building Solidarity Beyond Detention by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

 

*Also check out the art work of SBrownART on Etsy

*Support the GoFundMe campaign!

Update & Call to Action

Friends, I’m grateful to share that the funds we’ve raised so far will begin to cover two critical areas:

Hiring an asylum expert to testify on country conditions and persecution in Mauritania.

Paying a translator to prepare official documents from Mauritania for court.

This is a powerful start, but it is only a beginning. Much more is needed to sustain this work and give Yero a fair chance.

Just last weekend, more than 500 neighbors, faith leaders, and community members filled the streets of Germantown to demand freedom for Anou Vongbandith, a beloved neighbor detained by ICE. That outpouring reminds us that in Philadelphia, we stand up for our own. We will not allow ICE or private prison profiteers to quietly tear families apart.

And yet, too often, Black detainees receive little public exposure about their plight. Their stories often remain hidden, while the machinery of detention continues unchecked. This campaign is one way to break that silence and stand with our neighbors in full view of the community.

Now we need your help to widen the circle of solidarity. Please share this campaign with your networks and invite others to give. Every share and every donation, no matter the size, builds the path toward justice and freedom.

All funds go directly to Yero's defense team: https://gofund.me/ea76afe0

Boarding Houses, HBCUs, and the Seeds of a Global Vision/ Lincoln University of PA by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

*Support the GoFundMe campaign!

Yesterday I shared why my paternal grandfather fled South Carolina in the shadow of racial terror and made his way to Philadelphia. Two of his siblings followed, including his sister Emma, who would become the beloved Aunt Emma of family stories.

Student Kwame Nkrumah, would go on to become the 1st Prime Minister of Ghana, surrounded by fellow students at Lincoln University.

Aunt Emma ran a boarding house in Oxford, Pennsylvania, home to Lincoln University which is one of the two Historically Black Colleges and Universities located in the North. Her boarding house ( think the movie" Lackawanna Blues ", 2005, but on a black collegiate level) was filled almost exclusively with African students studying at Lincoln. Many of them would later become leaders in Africa’s anti-colonial movements.

Nnamdi Azikiwe arrived in the United States in 1925 and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Lincoln University by 1930.

As a teen visiting Aunt Emma in the 1940s, my father was captivated. He had already encountered Philadelphia’s Black professionals and intellectuals, but it was the African students, who were kind, curious, and eager to share stories of their homelands and independence struggles that left, too, an indelible mark on him. Aunt Emma herself was at the center of those conversations, drawing direct links between the Black American freedom struggle and the African liberation movements.

Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila is a Lincoln University graduate and the first woman prime minster of Namibia.

Those summers in Oxford sparked a lifelong openness in my father toward Africa. In our home in the 1970s, I grew up with a poster of Africa’s first post-colonial leaders hanging on the wall in my father's home office. I memorized their names, independence dates, and turned to our Encyclopedia Britannica ( remember those) to learn more. I still remember being 8 years old when S. McDowell Shelton, a Philadelphia church leader and family acquaintance, returned from a world tour where he had met Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. Suddenly the names on that poster felt alive, reachable. I realized Africa was not just history on a wall, but a living place one could travel to, learn from, and love.

Me and crew, with Carla Boykin, 1981, Maseru, Lesotho

By 1981, through Operation Crossroads Africa, I found myself in Southern Africa, visiting Lesotho, apartheid South Africa, Botswana and a very newly independent Zimbabwe. That summer reshaped my life. Years later and many African countries explored, I married and settled in Côte d’Ivoire. My father finally fulfilled his dream when he visited me in West Africa several times, using it as a launching point to explore more of the continent.

My dad, the best dad, Theodore McBride, me and little Sojourner, in 1999, visiting the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, in Yamoussoukro, Cote d'Ivoire.

All of this, starting with Aunt Emma’s boarding house, the kindness of strangers, the courage of students, the shared struggles of Black Americans and Africans, reminds me of the power of welcome. The power of imagination. The power of believing in one another’s futures.

That is exactly why I ask you to join me in supporting the campaign for Yero’s legal defense. His journey, too, is part of this long tradition of seeking freedom, safety, and dignity. Just as my father’s life was transformed by the generosity of African students at an HBCU, we can transform a life today by showing solidarity across borders.

All funds go directly to his attorney’s office. Please give what you can; every gift matters. Here is the link: https://gofund.me/ea76afe0

Please encourage others to give.