This a wonderful brother who has exhibited a model of genuine transformation and redemption. He has dedicated his life to the liberation and education of Afrikan people, especially our children. It’s a privilege to be able to soldier and labor with our good brother as he helps to rebuild and restore our community. Check this article out!
Article about Brother Shaka Senghor. A must read!
Shaka Senghor was on a bad road traveling fast when the knock came at his door.
At 18, he was selling drugs for a living and had been shot about a year earlier on a corner in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood, so Senghor was carrying a gun when a friend came by with two strangers.
He tragically caused a death. That’s how Senghor describes it now. But in 1991, he killed a guy. Was charged with second-degree murder. Got sentenced to 17-40 years. A month after his 19th birthday. His girlfriend was three months pregnant.
Senghor is the kind of guy that used to be written off. But everybody gets second chances. His came eight years later in a letter from his son.
Senghor found a way with his Live in Peace Digital and Literary Arts Project, which he founded in 2010 after his release from prison.
Live in Peace was among 10 programs that recently won Black Male Experience Leadership Awards from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in partnership with the Open Society Foundations’ Campaign for Black Male Achievement. The awards honor black men who act to improve their communities.
Senghor and his fiancée, Ebony Roberts, began the program at Tri County Educational Center in Southfield, an alternative school that is part of the Berkley district. Its student body includes Detroit teens.
Nathan said one of the biggest obstacles to graduation for some kids is having parents, guardians or loved ones in prison — “a source of shame and confusion,” for them, she said. But Senghor’s program helps them deal with the separation and grief.
Senghor plans to use his $25,000 award to do the program a second time at Tri-County and to start one at Cody High School in Detroit. He wanted to kick the program into high gear after a family tragedy last summer.
Senghor still does speaking engagements and encourages kids to write about and videotape their feelings.
He also plans to publish something of his own: the journals he kept and the letters he and his son wrote to each other while Senghor was in prison.
His son, the 8-year-old who helped his father choose a different path, is 20 and was starting down the same path his father took. But he now is interested in becoming a carpenter.
“He’s definitely moving in the right direction,” Senghor said.
For information about the program, go to www.lipeace.com.