Named a PA Humanities Window Keeper Civic Honoree

PA Humanities inaugural Window Keeper: Civic Honorees. Honored to be included. Here is a link to learn more: The Window Keepers

What does it mean to be recognized as an individual for work that is deeply collective?

I’m grateful to share that I’ve been selected by PA Humanities as one of its inaugural Window Keeper: Civic Honorees, a recognition of everyday leaders across Pennsylvania whose work strengthens community life and civic imagination.

While this honor is awarded to me as an individual, I am especially moved that one of the projects cited is a collaboration that involved many including poets Yolanda Wisher and Enoch the Poet.

I was part of a phenomenal team of Philly poets, students, and community partners whose work led to my students’ poems being installed in a local playground which is an act of placing young voices into public space and affirming that their words matter. This project, like so much of my work, is never mine alone.

That is the spirit that shapes my practice. Whether through short fiction, audio storytelling, or community-based projects, I work in relationship with history, with place, and with people. I move in the collective, even when the recognition carries a single name.

If you’d like to learn more about the students’ poetry installation project, please see video below.

The Last King of Rwanda’s Final Years in a Black American Community by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

 

I’ve just completed a serialized audio story inspired by Jean-Baptiste Ndahindurwa, Rwanda’s last king, and his years living in a working-class Black community in Virginia. Give it a listen.

If you’re new to my work, begin here.

I’m a writer and educator drawn to stories that move across borders. My work sits at the intersection of migration, memory, and community, often tracing the quiet ways people carry one another through displacement and change.

I’m honored to have recently been selected for the PA Humanities’ Window Keeper: Civic Honors, which recognizes everyday leaders across Pennsylvania. For me, storytelling is part of that work which includes listening closely, honoring what is often overlooked, and making space for connection.

My most recent project is a serialized audio short story inspired by Jean-Baptiste Ndahindurwa, Rwanda’s last king, and his last years living in a working-class Black community in Virginia.

This is a story of:

• exile and belonging

• the long shadow of colonialism

• and the generosity of everyday people

It asks what happens when histories meet not in textbooks, but in living rooms, kitchens, and neighborhoods.

If this story resonates, I invite you to subscribe and stay with the work. Here is the link:

https://octaviamcbride.substack.com/p/the-last-king-of-rwanda-a-story-of

The Free Library of Philadelphia's Monday Poets Series- Season Finale

 

Passing the Bow: Young Musicians in Conversation with Violist Jay Julio and Violinist Emily Bakakati by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

 Let me start from the end. This beautiful violin, with a photo of my mother watching over it, was “checked out” from the library. Yes, the Central Branch of the Free Library lends instruments.

My mother looking on as I return to the violin borrowed recently from the Free Library.

After conversations with my Aunt Mabel Mabel reminiscing about the many musicians in our circle, I decided to begin playing again. Music shaped my childhood. Many of us studied with the same teacher, William Hill, who was so stately and exacting. A Black American child prodigy from Georgia, sponsors arranged for him, as a very young man, to come to Philadelphia to study at the Curtis Institute. In the photo, my grandmother stands in the back on bass, Mr. Hill in the foreground, and my young mother just behind him along with other friends.

My mother, my grandmother, William Hill, and friends playing together.

I began violin in third grade, at Overbrook Elementary, and continued through Philadelphia High School for Girls. In our neighborhood, most homes had a piano, and most children played an instrument. Music was central to our lives. My own children would go on to play violin as well.

All of this has led me to a small but meaningful effort to honor that legacy: The Legacy Strings Initiative, through which I organize intimate concerts and conversations for young musicians.

Earlier in April, string students at the Powel School met two extraordinary artists: violist Jay Julio and violinist Emily Barkakati. Jay, a Juilliard School-trained musician, serves as assistant principal violist for the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra and has performed widely, including with touring productions like Hamilton and locally with the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra. Emily performs with Opera Philadelphia, Philadelphia Ballet Orchestra, and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.

The students were captivated and full of questions about training, discipline, and life as a working musician.

Young string students lean in, listening, asking, and learning as violist Jay Julio and violinist Emily Bakakati share their music and their journeys.

A heartfelt thank you to Powel School string teacher Ashley Vines and the school leadership for making this experience possible.

Holding Rwanda: Remembering the Genocide, Honoring Renewal by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

 Today I spent the morning calling and texting my friends in Rwanda, letting them know that on this momentous day in the history of their nation, I am holding them in my thoughts.

Standing with my daughter in Rwanda at the Kigali Genocide Memorial,  learning and holding close the stories that must never be forgotten.

7 marks the beginning of Kwibuka, Remembrance,a national period of mourning. The word Kwibuka, in Kinyarwanda, means “to remember.” It commemorates the start of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when, over the course of approximately 100 days, an estimated 800,000 to one million people, primarily Tutsi, along with moderate Hutu, and Twa were systematically killed.

Names of some of the victims who
were killed, remembered here.

Kwibuka is not only a time of grief, but also of witness. Across Rwanda and throughout the diaspora, there are vigils and acts of collective memory ensuring that the lives lost are not reduced to numbers, and that the truth of what happened is neither denied nor forgotten.

Rwanda, a small country in central East Africa.

And yet, alongside this profound mourning, there is also a recognition of what has followed. In the decades since 1994, Rwanda has undertaken a remarkable and intentional process of rebuilding. Through community-based justice systems such as Gacaca, national reconciliation efforts, and investments in education, healthcare, and infrastructure, the country has worked to restore a sense of unity and shared future. Today, Rwanda is often noted for its stability, its emphasis on collective identity over ethnic division, and its leadership in areas such as gender equity and sustainable development.

We visited many genocide memorials across Rwanda.

To remember Rwanda is to hold both truths at once: the depth of its loss, and the strength of its renewal. Today, I remember. I reach out. I stand in quiet solidarity with my friends and with a nation that continues, with dignity and determination, to carry its past while building its future.

My daughter conducted interviews in Rwanda, exploring why so many African American women are choosing it as their new home.

Rwanda is incredibly lush, its greenery constant and alive.

Feeling on top of the world!

My daughter reconnected with a friend from Stanford in Rwanda, and she graciously invited us to a beautiful Rwandan wedding.

We loved navigating the local markets.

Another dear friend opened his home to us, introducing us to his wife and family.

Poetry Across Borders: A Conversation with Kakuma’s Young Writers by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

Explore the work of photographer Steve Kiza, a Kakuma resident whose images document his community not for the Western gaze, but to reveal its humanity, resilience, and vibrancy despite difficult circumstances. Here is the link: Kakuma Photographer Steve Kiza

Established in 1992, Kakuma has become one of the largest refugee camps in the world. It is home to tens of thousands of people who fled violence and instability in neighboring countries, particularly South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For many residents, the camp is the only home they have ever known.

The poets I met are part of that generation. Their poems document life in the camp including its hardships, its long waiting, but also its communities of resilience, imagination, and artistic expression.

Other writers joined our gathering as well: the Somali -American writer Zainab Hassan, Ethiopian, London-based poet Alemu Tebeje and, of course, the London-based organizers of this event Ambrose Musiyiwa and Omobola Osamor, who convened us. Musiyiwa and Osamor are the force behind the Forced Migration and The Arts Poetry Project and the poetry anthologies complementing this project, of which my work is included along with other African writers based on the continent and throughout the diaspora. Last week’s gathering, poets shared their work and began discussing ways to continue supporting projects with the Kakuma poets, including helping them translate their work into Swahili so that their voices might reach wider audiences across East Africa.

The featured poets from Kakuma, Mamuch Bey and Mudadi Saidi, have lived most of their lives in the camp. Their work was striking. Their poetry was informed by displacement yet it was filled with clarity and courage.

Poet Mudadi Saidi

This reading was an extraordinary experience. It was one that reminded me how poetry continues to travel across borders, even when people cannot.

This reading was recorded, and I will share the link once it becomes available.

Poet Mamuch Bey