The dramatic vision and delicate balance of composition found in Adona's photographic works were developed while working with painter Rozzell Sykes. Her vision was literally changed. The awareness of light, shadows, colors, textures, tones and balance had changed. Soon she began creating with paint, stark images with the feel of Japanese simplicity. [Alisa Adona]'s paintings showed a freshly textured view and an exciting new eye in the Los Angeles art world. Over time, she was compelled to capture what she saw through the lens of a camera, ultimately making photography her new love.
[Assata Shakur]'s comments highlight the long and continuing relationship between African Americans and Cuba. Black abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Henry Highland Garnet had actively supported Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain over a century ago. After the revolutionaries seized power in 1959, [Fidel Castro] made a powerful impression among African Americans by staying in Harlem during his first visit to the United Nations. Castro's famous September, 1960 meeting with Malcolm X, to the great consternation of the U.S. government, reinforced the solidarity felt by progressive black Americans toward the revolutionary government.
As if her precious life and freedom were a game of poker, the FBI upped the ante or bounty on [Assata Shakur] to $1 million two weeks ago. In a television address last Tuesday, Cuban leader Fidel Castro rejected calls to hand over Shakur, stating that she was not a terrorist but a victim of racial persecution. "They wanted to portray her as a terrorist, something that was an injustice, a brutality, an infamous lie," Castro said in his televised speech, while never mentioning Shakur's name. "They have always been hunting her, searching for her because of the fact that there was an accident in which a policeman died."
"Cuba has represented metaphorically the ability of an oppressed people to challenge imperialism and colonialism," Marable explained. "In the political imagination of Black America, Cuba represents the radical possibility of fundamental social change. One of the key questions now is -- what does Cuba represent for Black America in this period of political transition?"
An editorial asserts that petty politics and diplomatic one-upmanship should not play a part in a stated request by Dr Juan Carrizo Estevez, the director of Cuba's two-year-old Latin American School of Medical Sciences, to obtain a visa to the US to meet with black college officials and the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss a grandiose, gratuitous offer from Cuba of a free medical education to US students.
Shunning warnings that Cuban Pres Fidel Castro was using them for propaganda purposes, eight US residents have taken Castro up on his offer to grant them free medical education, provided they return to poor communities in the US. On Apr 4, 2001, the eight African-American students took part in welcoming ceremonies hosted by Cuba's Latin American School of Medical Sciences.
Thanks to the federal Freedom of Information Act, citizens were made aware of a program the FBI - under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover - enacted to "neutralize" Black leadership in America.
Ever since [Assata Shakur] (nee Joanne Chesimard) became a member of the Black Panther Party and subsequently a member of the Black Liberation Army, she has been involved in revolutionary activities to change the racist policies of America. She found herself in the crosshairs of the criminal justice system in the early 1970s after she and her comrades were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike by New Jersey State Troopers. Assata was traveling with Zayd Shakur and Sundiata Acoli in May 1973 when they were stopped, the troopers said, because of a faulty tail light on their car. Shortly after the stop, a shootout occurred. "There were lights and sirens," Shakur recalled in her autobiography. "Zayd was dead. My mind knew that Zayd was dead. The air was like cold glass, my mouth tasted like blood and dirt. Suddenly the [car] door flew open and I felt myself being dragged out onto the pavement. Pushed and punched, a foot upside my head, a kick in the stomach. Police were everywhere. One had a gun to my head," she wrote.
A trade accord spearheaded by the NAACP worth $1.5 billion between the Cuban government and black farmers was heralded on Nov 17, 2002 by the Rev Al Sampson, who called the accord an "international window of opportunity" for African Americans. Sampson, who works with African American farmers, said this agreement gives black farmers an "international window" through Cuba into the Caribbean.
Ms. [Adona] is a photographer utilizing the visual medium to tell stories of cultures from around the world, with the hope of creating a better understanding of diverse people through the visual arts. Last summer Ms. Adona introduced "CUBA, Reflections of Life" during a speech at the United Nations in Geneve, Switzerland, where she spoke on the necessity utilizing a single, powerful image to tell the story of a nation.
