PANELISTS' BIOGRAPHIES

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Amadou Mahtar M'Bow

Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow held the title of Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) from 1974 to 1987. He is currently the chairman of the International Scientific Committee for UNESCO's "Slave Routes" project. He has been awarded numerous civic awards such as BLANK, and honorary doctorates from universities worldwide UNESCO has published several of his books, including his most recent, UNESCO: Universalité et coopération intellectuelle internationale and Choisir l'espoir (Choose Hope).

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou is a remarkable Renaissance woman. From humble beginnings she has risen to establish herself as a poet, historian, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer and director. She has published ten best selling books and countless magazine articles earning her Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominations. Dr. Angelou, who speaks French, Spanish, Italian, and West African Fanti began her career in drama and dance. After marrying a South African freedom fighter, she lived in Cairo where she was the editor of The Arab Observer. Later, in Ghana, she became the feature of the African Review and taught at the University of Ghana. In the 1960's, at the request of Martin Luther King Jr. Angelou became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She was later appointed to various commissions by President Gerald Ford and President Jimmy Carter. Currently Dr. Angelou lectures throughout the U.S. and abroad. She also teachers American Studies at Wake Forest University, in North Carolina and Reynolds.

http://ucaswww.mcm.uc.edu/worldfest/about.html: Link to more detailed biographical information

Rex Nettleford

Rex Nettleford is deputy vice chancellor of the University of the West Indies in Jamaica and is editor of the university's Caribbean Quarterly. After attending Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, he founded the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica, of which he is still principal choreographer and artistic director. He has lectured and toured with UNESCO and other agencies. His books include Mirror, Mirror: Identity, Race and Protest in Jamaica, Caribbean Cultural Identity, Dance Jamaica: Self Definition and Artistic Discovery, and The University of the West Indies : A Caribbean Response to the Challenge of Change, among others. He has received an Order of Merit and two honorary doctorates from American universities; a conference on Caribbean culture was held in his honor in 1995.

http://www.uvi.edu/CaribbeanWriter/volume11/rexnettleford.html: a 1996 interview with Nettleford about his involvement with dance

Howard Dodson

Howard Dodson is currently the Chief of the Schomburg Institute for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library.

Manthia Diawara

Manthia Diawara Manthia Diawara is Professor of Comparative Literature and Film and Director of Africana Studies and the Institute of African-American Affairs at NYU. He has edited Black American Cinema: Aesthetics and Spectatorship (Routledge 1993) and has written African Cinema: Politics and Culture (Indiana UP, 1992) and In Search of Africa (Harvard UP, 1998). He co-directed the film Sembene Ousmane: The Making of African Cinema and most recently directed Rouch in Reverse. Three of his introductions to the periodical Black Renaissance (including one entitled "Slavery and the Content of History") can be downloaded via Acrobat.

http://www.iupressjournals.indiana.edu/blackrenaissance: Diawara's introduction to an issue of Black Renaissance, entitled "Slavery and the Content of History" (Click on Issue 2.1 to download via Adobe Acrobat).

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/Fall98/catalog/in_search_africa.html: A summary of In Search of Africa

Colin Palmer

Colin A. Palmer is a distinguished Professor of History at the City University of New York. He is also the author of several books, including Human Cargoes: The British Slave Trade to Spanish America, 1700-1739 (U. of Illinois P., 1981) and his most recent, Passageways: An Interpretive History of Black Americans (2 vols., Harcourt, Brace, 1998).

Maryse Condé

Maryse Condé, a leading French Caribbean author, is Professor of French and Comparative Literature in the Department of French and Romance Philology at Columbia University, and is chair of the Center for French and Francophone Studies. Born in Guadeloupe, she studied and taught at the Sorbonne in Paris. She has written ten novels, the most recent of which is Windward Heights: a readaptation of Wuthering Heights set in Guadeloupe. Other works include Segou, Crossing the Mangrove, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, and The Last of the African Kings. Condé has received Le Grand Prix Littéraire de la femme and was Guggenheim fellow in 1987-88.

http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/AFLIT/CondeMaryseEng.html: A short biography, bibliography, and a link to info and critical praise of Windward Heights

Randall Robinson

Randall Robinson is founder and president of TransAfrica, the organization that headed the movement to influence U.S. policies directed at Africa and the Caribbean. Robinson was born in Richmond, VA. He attended Norfolk State College, before serving in the U.S. Army. Robinson went on to receive a B.A. from Virginia Union College in 1967 and later, a law degree from Harvard University in 1970. His involvement in opposition to the Vietnam War led him to question American policy towards colonialism in Africa. In 1975, Robinson became a congressional foreign affairs aide. Two years later, with the support of the Congressional Black Caucus, he founded TransAfrica. In the years to follow, Robinson focused most of his attention on lobbying for government action against South Africa's Apartheid system.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/gw/gwmain.html: A page about the history behind the Apotheosis of George Washington, which Robinson discussed in his speech.

Tricia Rose

Tricia Rose, who moderated the Opening Plenary, is Associate Professor in the NYU Department of History and the Africana Studies Program. Her book Black Noise: Rap Music and the Black Culture in Contemporary America (Wesleyan UP, 1994) earned an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation and made the Village Voice Top 25 Books of the Year. She is co-editor of Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture (Routledge 1994). She is widely published in such journals and magazines as the Women's Review of Books and the Journal of Popular Music and Society, has made television appearances on such shows as the Montel Williams Show and Good Day New York, and frequently lectures.

http://www.njcu.edu/news/News_Old/NEWS_ROSE.html: A page which lists where her essays have appeared, where she has appeared, and the awards she has received

http://www.dartmouth.edu/acad-inst/upne/mc4.html: A summary and critical praise of Black Noise: Rap Music and the Black Culture in Contemporary America

Jayne Cortez

Jayne Cortez co-founded the Organization of Women Writers of Africa in 1991. She has written ten books of poetry, the most recent of which is Somewhere in Advance of Nowhere. She performs her poetry to the music of her jazz band, the Firespitters. Their most recent recording is Taking the Blues Back Home. Cortez was featured in the 1982 documentary film Poetry in Motion and appeared in the music video "Nelson Mandela is Coming."

http://www.diacenter.org/prg/poetry/97_98/cortez.html: A poem from Somewhere in Advance of Nowhere

http://www.owwa.org/html/body_owwa.html: A single page listing the goals, board of directors and founders of the Organization of Women Writers of Africa

Steven C. Newsome is director of the Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture of the Smithsonian Institution.

Vinie Burrows (interviewed at opening plenary)

Vinie Burrows, legendary actress, writer and producer, frustrated by the lack of quality roles available in professional theater for serious actors of color created and produced her first one woman show---Walk Together Children. This off-Broadway production won the praise of 13 New York newspapers, including teh New York Times. From there she went on to produce seven other one-woman shows that have been performed around the world. Burrows has been awarded the Actors Equity Association Paul Robeson Award, the Audelco 1994 Best Actress of the Year and the Living Legend Award from Leon Hamilton's Black Theater Festival.