Remembering Our Beloved Elder Adunni Oshupa Tabasi NuNu Afua Frie-Frie II

Elder Adunni was the Ghana-Nkwanta Projects’ driving force, motor, engine and all those that were close to her and worked with her know that Elder was always about US – Afrikan people doing the work that we need to do to create our future. A future in establishing self-sufficient communities. She knew deeply the predicament that our people are in and the depth of our psychological enslavement.  Her efforts were full of energy, action and force. She believed deeply that we must go home to Mother Afrika or at least be a part of Afrika’s development and be a Pan-Afrikan people in building and not just in what she would call “hot air talking”. 

Communicating with her was all about planning, vision and consistent work to reach goals and objectives.  All of those that were fortunate to talk with her on a regular basis also know how deeply her commitment to her people is/was. She knew very well that most of us are asleep. Elder was never asleep at the wheel. I know it must have been difficult for her guiding us in our sluggishness. She had the energy of a lioness and was always ready and always planning. She taught many of us, how to just love the work that needed to be done – and to stay focused, stay focused.

Elder was very adamant in purpose and the freeing of our minds was her life goal and purpose. She knew quite well that we must see ourselves as Afrikans therefore we become connected to who we are and where we are from, and that we should not settle for being Blacks, Afrikan Americans, etc.  She believed that when we use these terms we are in fact disconnecting ourselves from our history.  Why settle for the daily degradations and disconnect ourselves from the fact that we were and are an enslaved people. She did not like for us to use the term ‘slaves’ that was seen as blasphemy to her and totally incorrect and destructive towards a view of self. We were ENSLAVED and still Enslaved and held Captive.  She did not just say ‘Free the Land’ she knew that we must repatriate and free ourselves from this place of bondage.

Our Elder was also a creative genius in African attire and the lost art of clothing using draping techniques. She saw clothing ourselves as a liberating tool that we must use. Recently, I attended a couple of her workshops for the Afrikan Burial Ground’s Kwanza and she discussed the history of fashion, showing and teaching the women where the roots of fashion come from – from us Afrikans. Sophisticated dressing in draping and gowns came from us. She took two pieces of fabric and showed how two pieces of cloth could be arranged and rearranged into eight different ways to make a dress, tops, pants and skirts. It was a creative an awaking moment for us – releasing our creative potential and our history in creative dress. She said “this is what you do” when you do not have a sewing machine. Also, that it is enfranchising in being able to create your own clothes.

Elder was long on philosophy and understanding, but it all had a point, a direction directing us to take up the challenge for our liberation. She would instill in us that we are not to be tied to being Americans. She detested the restraints that this society places on us. The challenge is that we must extend our identity and to not settle for being this thing this product of America enslavement. We were not made in America and that we must dismiss this limited view of ourselves. These mental traps of enslavement, these disconnects to our reality. She use to say “Stop trying to make a better Jail”. Some times it was live having conscious Mama who had her switch out on you, always pointing out our confusion and our lack of trusts and our enslavement. Her goal was for us to pick up the mantel, the switch, whatever you got and make the moves to live your commitments daily. She brought us together, made us close, and would say “we got to be as so close that water cannot get through in our vision, efforts and beliefs. She preached that we have to understand our psychological enslave here and on the continent, and how it retards our ability to act and do what we got to do. 

She was always giving us leads to probe, to dig, to dig to dig and then you know. It is about the education that we give ourselves a life of scholarship, action and involvement in which Elder Adunni practiced fully in Afrikan art, fashion, cuisine, history and her crowning joy of activism in regards to the Land Issue and developing the Land Gift in Ghana.  She would say pick up the mantel of knowledge – we cannot have a movement of thought if we think it can only come from getting Ph.D. and credentials from this system that oppresses us. Another one of her favorite sayings was “we are out of our minds”.  She knew that certain thought processes that we have got to change in order for us to be fully productive in our activities of activating change and shaping our lives. She would say learn to think, read, continue to find the truth, depth, your greatness, and build Afrika in the spirit of  Pan Afrikanism.

Many of us are so fortunate to have had a mother in struggle. It was a privilege to walk beside her and to sometimes just listen and be of service. To talk with her and to work with her was a bonding experience. Sometimes to just sit next to her and hear her wisdom planted so deep from experience, as she would drop pearls, gold and diamonds of though and knowledge.

Elder would say “See What I See”! She would say “Stop being slaves to someone else’s ideals of so-called Democracy, a mental trick bag enslaving us and making us slaves to others. Her mission was and is to train us to think and act. We were not slaves but enslaved.

Elder Adunni had a view!

nkwanta.tripod.com
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Sincerely,

Linda Fletcher
January 12, 2008