Sonia Sanchez Tribute

Sonia Sanchez Tribute at the Church of the Advocate
ENTERTAINERS INCLUDED,
MOM (Music Over Matters) - Female Ancestral Drumming
Odean Pope - Special Jazz Presentation
Reynald Williams - Spoken Word Presentation
Autumn Ashanté - Spoken Word Presentation
Monnette Sudler and Trapeta Mayson Jazz and Spoken Word Presentation
The Twin Poets - Spoken Word Presentation
Universal African Dance & Drum Ensemble

AWARDS AND COMMENTS
Ann Guise and The Bright Lights
State Senator Shirley Kitchen
Sarah Glover - Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists
Pam Africa
Weekend of Peace
Father Paul Washington Community Committee

SONIA’S BIO
Poet, Mother, Professor, National and International Lecturer on Black Culture and Literature, Women’s Liberation, Peace and Racial Justice, Sponsor of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Board Member of MADRE. Sonia Sanchez is the author of over 16 books including, Homecoming, We BaddDDD People, Love Poems, I’ve Been a Woman, A Sound Investment and Other Stories, Homegirls and Handgranades, Under A Soprano Sky, Wounded In The House of a Friend (Beacon Press, 1998), and the most recent Shake Loose My Skin (Beacon Press, 1999). In addition to being a contributing editor to The Black Scholar and the Journal of African Studies, she has edited an anthology We Be Bad Sorcerers: 25 Stories by Black Americans, BMa: The Sonia Sanchez Library Review, is the first African American Journal that discusses the work of Sonia Sanchez and the Black Arts Movement. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts the Lucretia Mott Award for 1984, the Outstanding Arts Award from the Pennsylvania Coalition of Black Women, the Community Service Award from the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, she is a winner of the 1985 American Book Award for Homegirls and Handgrenades, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Humanities for 1988, The Peace and Freedom Award from Women International League for Peace and Freedom (W.I.L.P.F.) for 1989, a PEW Fellowship in the arts for 1992 - 1993 and the recipient of the Langston Hughes Poetry Award for 1999. Does Your House Have Lions? was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the Poetry Society of America’s 2001 Robert Frost Medalist and a Ford Freedom Scholar from Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Her poetry also appeared in the movie Love Jones. Sonia Sanchez has lectured at over 500 universities and colleges in the United States and has traveled extensively, reading her poetry in Africa, Cuba, England, the Caribbean, Australia, Europe, Nicaragua, the People’s Republic of China, Norway, and Canada. She was the first Presidential Fellow at Temple University and she held the Laura Carnell Chair in English at Temple University. She is the recipient of the Harper Lee Award, 2004, Alabama Distinguished Writer, and the National Visionary Leadership Award for 2006. She is the recipient of the 2005 Leeway Foundation Transformational Award. Currently Sonia Sanchez in one of 20 African American women featured in “Freedom Sisters,” an interactive exhibition created by the Cincinnati Museum Center and Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition and was the Robert Creely Award for 2009.

The event turned out to be a “spiritual moment” in our lives.
Odean Pope with his orchestra/band did a special tribute, thirteen year old Autum Ashanté was beyond her years with her prophetic words of wisdom, the awards bestowed upon our sister were from the heart. When the event was over we all were different and changed spiritually. it was a once in a lifetime and I feel sorry for those who didn’t make it.