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Since '98

Founded by Shirikiana and Haile Gerima and named after the internationally acclaimed film SANKOFA they produced. It's symbol, the Sankofa Bird, looks backward constantly checking as she moves into the future.

 

Sankofa Video, Books & Cafe is liberated territory that hopes to be a place where thoughtful consideration of the past and future can take place via books, films, and programming particularly generated by and about people of African Descent.

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Black
Lions
,
Roman Wolves

Support today by making a tax-deductible donation towards final completion costs of Black Lions, Roman Wolves, the 5-part, 10-hour-plus documentary film by Haile Gerima.

Haile Gerima's
next film:

 

 Featured Books

sankofa gift card

Can't decide on a gift? How about a gift card!

(You can even schedule it ahead.)

Upcoming Events

  • A Conversation with Dr. Kris Marsh on Black Identity, Gender Politics, and the Love Jones Cohort.
    A Conversation with Dr. Kris Marsh on Black Identity, Gender Politics, and the Love Jones Cohort.
    Fri, Mar 29
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café
    Mar 29, 2024, 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Mar 29, 2024, 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Join us for a special morning event! Lehigh University and students in the course Ain't I A__? Black Identity and Gender Politics is excited to host a public community lecture with Dr. Kris Marsh, Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.
  • Friday Night Flight$
    Friday Night Flight$
    Multiple Dates
    Fri, Mar 29
    Washington
    Mar 29, 2024, 7:00 PM – 11:00 PM
    Washington, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Mar 29, 2024, 7:00 PM – 11:00 PM
    Washington, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
  • Below DC’s Black Poverty Line Poetry Reading & Discussion with Kenard Johnson
    Below DC’s Black Poverty Line Poetry Reading & Discussion with Kenard Johnson
    Wed, Apr 03
    Sankofa Video Books & Café
    Apr 03, 2024, 6:30 PM
    Sankofa Video Books & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Apr 03, 2024, 6:30 PM
    Sankofa Video Books & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Celebrate National Poetry Month with with DC poet, Kenard Johnson.
  • Holy Ghost Key with A. B. Spellman
    Holy Ghost Key with A. B. Spellman
    Sat, Apr 06
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café
    Apr 06, 2024, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Apr 06, 2024, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Join us for a special book discussion with our beloved Howard University scholar Dr. Joshua Myers and the legendary poet A. B. Spellman on Holy Ghost Key, a new book of poetry by Dr. Myers!
  • Let the Circle Be Unbroken: A New Expanded Edition Book Release with Marimba Ani
    Let the Circle Be Unbroken: A New Expanded Edition Book Release with Marimba Ani
    Sun, Apr 07
    Sankofa Video & Books
    Apr 07, 2024, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
    Sankofa Video & Books, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Apr 07, 2024, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
    Sankofa Video & Books, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    We are so honored to host a community book event for Marimba Ani's Let the Circle Be Unbroken A New and Expanded Edition With an Introduction, Preface and Praise Song for the Ancestors!
  • HNS Presents: -  I Am an Antiracist Superhero: With Activities to Help You Be One Too!
    HNS Presents: -  I Am an Antiracist Superhero: With Activities to Help You Be One Too!
    Sat, Apr 13
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café
    Apr 13, 2024, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Apr 13, 2024, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Happy Nappy Storytelling is back to bring you another amazing story from a Black author. This time we're welcoming Dr.Jennifer N. Bacon author of I Am An Antiracist Superhero!
  • Blacksound  Making Race and Popular Music in the United States Matthew Morrison in Conversation with Joshua Myers
    Blacksound  Making Race and Popular Music in the United States Matthew Morrison in Conversation with Joshua Myers
    Sat, Apr 13
    Sankofa Video & Books
    Apr 13, 2024, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
    Sankofa Video & Books, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Apr 13, 2024, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
    Sankofa Video & Books, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Join us for a deep dive into Matthew Morrison's latest release, Blacksound: Making Race and Popular Music in the United States!
  • Paint a Flower Pot with Feeling Rare MakeSpace
    Paint a Flower Pot with Feeling Rare MakeSpace
    Sat, Apr 27
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café
    Apr 27, 2024, 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Apr 27, 2024, 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Ready to try something fun and creative?! Join the facilitators of Feeling Rare makespace for an afternoon of creation! Sign up to paint your own plant pot that comes with a new plant!
  • I Love My People
    I Love My People
    Thu, May 09
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café
    May 09, 2024, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    May 09, 2024, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Next up, we've got Kim Singleton the author of I Love My People, a love letter to African American culture and the people who make it great! Perfect to add to your coffee table!
  • Deep Currents
    Deep Currents
    Fri, May 10
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café
    May 10, 2024, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    May 10, 2024, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Join us for another amazing screening! Deep Currents is a 5 movement audiovisual art piece (a true collaboration between Seaux Chill & David McKissic) celebrating the past, present, and future of Black Indianapolis.
  • Chapters of Change Presents: “All About Love” - Embracing Love, Empowering Women.
    Chapters of Change Presents: “All About Love” - Embracing Love, Empowering Women.
    Sat, May 11
    Sankofa Video & Books
    May 11, 2024, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
    Sankofa Video & Books, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    May 11, 2024, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
    Sankofa Video & Books, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Do you want to know what it means to truly love and cultivate healthier relationships? Are your current beliefs about love holding you back from fulfilling relationships? What if “All About Love” can unlock the secrets to healthier relationships?
  • Chapters of Change Presents: Unveiling Narratives - 'I Wish My Dad' - A Chapter of Mental Wellness
    Chapters of Change Presents: Unveiling Narratives - 'I Wish My Dad' - A Chapter of Mental Wellness
    Sat, May 18
    Sankofa Video & Books
    May 18, 2024, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
    Sankofa Video & Books, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    May 18, 2024, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
    Sankofa Video & Books, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Have you ever felt the weight of unsaid words, unvalidated emotions, or dismissed experiences in your dynamic with your father? Are you curious about how these moments impacted your well-being? Join this bibliotherapy event with licensed professionals!
  • HNS Presents:RUBY RENÉ HAD SO MUCH TO SAY
    HNS Presents:RUBY RENÉ HAD SO MUCH TO SAY
    Sun, May 19
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café
    May 19, 2024, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    May 19, 2024, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Happy Nappy Storytelling is back at it again and this time we're bringing Ashley Iman to the stage to share. her debut title Ruby René Had so Much to Say!
  • Do The Write Thing with Kwame Alexander
    Do The Write Thing with Kwame Alexander
    Thu, May 23
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café
    May 23, 2024, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    May 23, 2024, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Calling all authors! We are excited to welcome author, Kwame Alexander as he spends an hour answering questions about the publishing industry and how to write and publish your book!
  • Reframe the Marketplace: The Total Market Approach to Reaching the New Majority
    Reframe the Marketplace: The Total Market Approach to Reaching the New Majority
    Time is TBD
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café
    Time is TBD
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Time is TBD
    Sankofa Video, Books, & Café, 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
    Join us for a live discussion with Jeffery L Bowman author of Reframe the Marketplace: The Total Market Approach to Reaching the New Majority!
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The Dialectic is in the Sea Book Talk
48:38
Holy Ghost Key with A. B. Spellman

Holy Ghost Key with A. B. Spellman

About the book: Joshua Myers's Holy Ghost Key celebrates the essential role of African music in the continuity and sustenance of African Diasporic life and culture. Myers weaves his broad knowledge of African and African American music practices, genres and instruments with his memory of gospel lyrics and symbols evoking African spirituality, showing us the ways in which this music has been both the light on our path and the grounding of our historic journey. Though many of the poems pay tribute to the genius of contemporary musicians who have won popular acclaim, the entire collection reminds of a persistent African ancestral legacy. About the author: Joshua M. Myers is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies in the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. He is the author of Holy Ghost Key, the winner of the 2023 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize (Broadside Lotus Press, due February 2024), Of Black Study (Pluto, 2023), Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition (Polity, 2021), and We Are Worth Fighting For: A History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989 (NYU Press, 2019), as well as the editor of A Gathering Together: Literary Journal. His research interests include Africana intellectual histories and traditions, Africana philosophy, musics, and foodways as well as critical university studies, and disciplinarity. His work has been published in TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, Zanj: The Journal of Critical Global South Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies Journal, Washington History, The Journal of Academic Freedom, The Journal of African American Studies,The Journal of Pan African Studies, The African Journal of Rhetoric, The Human Rights and Globalization Law Review, Downbeat, The New Inquiry , Pambazuka, Obsidian, and Burning House Press, among other literary spaces. He serves on the board of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations and the SNCC Legacy Project and is the senior content producer at the Africa World Now Project. He was the co-coordinator of the SNCC Legacy Project’s Black Power Chronicles Oral History Project and organizes with Washington DC’s Positive Black Folks in Action. In addition he serves on the editorial boards of The Compass: Journal of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, Siyabonana: The Journal of Africana Studies, and The Journal of Black Studies. A central thread that guides all of this work is an approach to knowledge that takes seriously that peoples of African descent possess a deep sense of reality, a thought tradition that more than merely interprets what is around us, but can transform and renew these spaces we inhabit—a world we would like to fundamentally change. About the host: Poet and writer Alfred Bennett (A.B.) Spellman was born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. He earned a BS in political science from Howard University, where he also attended law school. He published his first book of poems, The Beautiful Days, in 1964 while working as a jazz music reviewer. His second book, Things I Must Have Known (2008), received an honorable mention from the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award and was nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. Spellman has written essays and poetry for Rhythm Magazine and taught at Morehouse College, Emory University, Rutgers, and Harvard University. In 1975, he became director of the Arts in Education Study Project for the National Endowment of the Arts, where he held a series of positions, culminating in his role as deputy chairman for the Office of Guidelines, Panel and Council Operations. Spellman retired from the NEA in 2005; his service to the organization is honored by the A.B. Spellman Award for Jazz Advocacy. In addition to writing, Spellman has served on a number of arts panels, including the Advisory Group on the National Museum of African American History and Culture of the Smithsonian Institution.
The Garretts of Columbia: A Black South Carolina Family from Slavery to the Dawn of Integration
53:29

The Garretts of Columbia: A Black South Carolina Family from Slavery to the Dawn of Integration

A multigenerational story of hope and resilience, The Garretts of Columbia is an American history of Black struggle, sacrifice, and achievement. At the heart of David Nicholson's beautifully written and carefully researched book, The Garretts of Columbia: A Black South Carolina Family from Slavery to the Dawn of Integration, are his great-grandparents, Casper George Garrett and his wife, Anna Maria. Papa, as Garrett was known to his family, was a professor at Allen University, a lawyer, and an editor of three newspapers. Dubbed Black South Carolina's "most respected disliked man," he was always ready to attack those he believed disloyal to his race. When his quixotic idealism and acerbic editorials resulted in his dismissal from Allen, his wife, who was called Mama, came into her own as the family bread winner. She was appointed supervisor of rural colored schools, trained teachers, and oversaw the construction of schoolhouses. At 51, this remarkable woman learned to drive, taking to the back roads outside Columbia to supervise classrooms, conduct literacy drives, and instruct rural farm women in the basics of home economics. Though Papa and Mama came of age in the bleak Jim Crow years after Reconstruction, they believed in the possibility of America. Resolutely supporting their country during the First World War, they sent three of their sons to serve. One son wrote a musical with Langston Hughes during the Harlem Renaissance. Another son became a dentist. A daughter earned a doctorate in French. And the family persevered. But, for all that Papa and Mama did to make Columbia a nurturing place, their sons and daughters joined the Great Migration, scattering north in search of the freedom the South denied them. The Garretts embraced the hope of America and experienced the melancholy of a family separated by the search for opportunity and belonging. On the basis of decades of research and thousands of family letters--which include Mama's tart-tongued observations of friends and neighbors--The Garretts of Columbia is family history as American history, rich with pivotal events viewed through the lens of the Garretts's lives. About the author: David Nicholson is a former editor and book reviewer for the Washington Post Book World and author of Flying Home: Seven Stories of the Secret City. The New York Times praised its “sensitivity and grace,” and the Los Angeles Times included it on a list of books that “show us where to find the real America.” It was also featured in Publisher’s Weekly as one of “7 Essential Washington, D.C., Books (That Aren’t About Politics).” Nicholson attended Haverford College before graduating from the University of the District of Columbia. He studied creative writing at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. Nicholson has worked as a reporter in San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Dayton, Ohio. He lives in Vienna, Virginia, with his wife and son.

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