Wanda's Picks Radio:FiberAlchemist; MOVE9; Kuumba Collective

Today we are looking at Black Liberation, the first day of Black August, a month New Africans look at fallen comrades as well as successful revolts against enslavement, whether that is 500 years ago or presently. We are joined by artist, writer, April Martin-Chartrand, whose exhibit Treasured Cigar Box series, at the San Francisco Public Library, (Main Branch) in the African American Center, 3rd Fl., through Aug. 2, 2012, invites audiences into a world of the global slave trade perspectives between Africa, Europe, the Americas, and America (USA). These multidimensional assemblage cigar boxes (15 boxes) incorporate recycled and found objects, keys, money, and hand painted paper. This series bridges the gap by connecting the major Colonial slave trade shareholders of the New World. Treasured Cigar Box (series) offers knowledge and research into the deeper meaning on how the exploitative, atrocious and brutal servitude, and harvesting of tobacco by circa 12-million African Slaves fueled the beginnings of the modern day corporations. We then shift the conversation to a major travesty of justice, the MOVE 9, members of the organization who have been incarcerated for 34 years. Ramona Africa, Minister of Communications for MOVE, updates us on the status of these freedom fighters who have been denied parole since they have been eligible (2008), because they refuse to confess to a crime they did not commit. We play a commentary by Mumia Abu Jamal, where he reflects on what Judge Malmud said when asked what was the charge. We close with an interview with Sister Sheba Makeda Haven, who is one of the Kuumba Collective artists participating in Mudcloth Madness, currently up at the African American Museum & Library, Oakland through August 7 opens with a poem for Black August: The Pig Within. Music: Babatunde Lea's African Tapestry; WolfHawkJaguar; Sankofa film excerpt: "Spirit of the Dead;" Ben Vereen's Defying Gravity