Bridges Digital Archive: Audio and Video Recordings

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Document Type

Oral History

Publication Date

8-27-2014

Abstract

Ratibu Jacocks interviews Owusu Hadori, a man with an interest in community activism and uplifting people through education and Black history. The interview starts with Hodari mentioning how he changed his birth name to his current one, which means “alert and intelligent” and “clear of the way”, respectively, in the Swahili language. After this, Hodari explains how he saw the need to educate the young Black community through an independent, Black institution. The interviewee speaks about his background, stating that he was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Chicago, Illinois, but had decided to stay in California based on college being free and the weather more to his taste. Hodari explains that his family was part of the migrantion of African Americans who were from the South and traveled to other parts of the country. While working in construction, he mentioned that he had learned about a group of religious leaders that came together as a group to talk about community issues. Later, this group would be named the Inland Empire Concerned African-American Churches. With education being his first love and his dreams of being a teacher not applicable if he were to leave for another country, Hodari settled on construction and still continued his role in Christian ministry. After discussing the history of attempts to take out leadership figures in the late 70s Black movements, his own differences with those of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the threat of being under surveillance, Hodari moves on to talk about education. To him, he wants to education especially the Black youth so that they may see a way to build their nation and to looked for change without, both, violence and turning the other cheek. His concern also lies with the 40% dropout rates for Black youth at the time of the recording, and that the lack of value of life leads to negative side effects. Hodari speaks of gaining college resources for the youth as well as the judgement within the judicial system. Hodari wants others to see a person not as a person of a particular ethnic group but as just a person. There is also a mention of reparation and how those whose families and forebears deserved to be accommodated based on racial injustices that were forced onto them for hundreds of years. After further speaking on the racial problems within the country as well as faith, the interview turns to financial matters. Hodari says that the average Black family is forced to work so much more to earn a living due to the systemic and historical racist problems faced by the community. He believes that, if all churches come together and communicate with the banks and ask for small contributions from the congregation members, that would help the youth. The explanation is that such a fund will build the community and banks can help that resource expand over time. The interview ends with Hodari speaking about the opening of such bank accounts, that the organization had been living over a decade at that point, and that this archiving project is one of the greatest ones he has ever heard of.

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