3:29APlease stay tuned. So nice is one of the finest recorded and engineered school steel band albums in our collection. Here’s a group of middle and high school students from Lancaster, New York, Carnival Kids Steel Orchestra, on pans crafted by master builder Ellie Manette, doing Stevie Wonder’s My Cherie Amour.
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6:29AWe’re in the Steel Pan Vibes Spotlight with our guest, Dwayne Akio Wong Omowale. Dwayne is an author, teacher, activist, speaker. Good morning, Dwayne. Thanks for joining us in the Spotlight.
6:44CThank you for inviting me. It’s always great to be here.
6:46AOkay, you’ve been here before and you’re back again because you got a lot of valuable stuff to share. We’re gonna talk to Dwayne about African education, education. We’re gonna talk about steel pan. We’re gonna talk about his books. We’re gonna talk about a lot of stuff. How would you describe an African education? What does an African education mean to you?
7:09CWell, what it means to me is a holistic education. And when I teach people about Africa and African history, I don’t only look at the glamorous part of Africa in terms of, you know, great kings and the queens and the scientific achievements of Africa, but also the cultural and the cultural values. So to me, African education has to also include particular cultural values, you know, how, how do people relate to each other, how should we treat each other. That also, I think, is part of what African education is.
7:36AOkay, I agree with that. Now, you’re a young writer, you’ve written several books, I think 10 in all.
7:44C15 now.
7:44A15 now? Last time it was 10. Imagine, this guy is not 27 years old and he’s written 15 books. Listen, guy, I mean, that’s inspiring. Really? So books and essays on the African experience at home and the diaspora. Do your books have a single theme, and what really motivates you to write?
8:08CWell, what motivates me to write is -- was my experience in school. African history is not something that was ever really taught when I was in school. So what happened was I graduated high school and I realized that I don’t know very much about my own history. So the motivation came to not only learn about the history but to share it to other people. And the common theme throughout all of my books is that our history is so interconnected that that in itself is the theme, that everything we’ve done is connected as a people. And one example that I could think of is I’ve written a book on Marcus Garvey, and his movement was so influential that he’s influenced many of the other people that I’ve written about. So aside from Garvey, I’ve also written about people like Like Malcolm X, like Bob Marley, Walter Rodney, Kwame Nkrumah. All 4 men operated in different countries, Malcolm being an American, Kwame Nkrumah being Ghanaian, and Bob Marley being from Jamaica. But all 3 men were profoundly influenced by Garvey’s movement. So with all 15 books that I’ve written, people can see the interconnectedness of not only our history but our common struggle as African people.
9:11ATell our listeners more about your books, you know. What are the messages in some of them and, you know, what you want readers to take away and also where they are available?
9:22CI’ll start with where they’re available. All 15 are available through Amazon and Barnes& Noble. There’s a couple other bookstores that I know have them, but I know for a fact that all 15 can be found on Amazon and Barnes& Noble. And like I said, the main reason why I started writing was to educate other people on African history. And one of the reasons why I’ve written 15 books is because our history is so vast and so complex that it really takes quite a number of books to cover everything. So the main thing I want people to take away is to have a comprehensive understanding of our history and everything that we’ve struggled and everything that our ancestors have sacrificed to get us to where we are at this point. Because, you know, as African people, we’ve had a lot of obstacles put in our path that we’ve had to overcome.
10:09AMm-hmm. Now, to me, you know, you’re more than an author and a teacher. I told the listeners that already. In fact, this is the 3rd time you’ve -- you’re back over the years, over maybe the last 3 years or so.
10:21BYes.
10:22AWell, we’re really happy to have you. Um, would it be accurate to include in the things you do your role as an activist? Um, what, what are some of the things you do? What does an activist really do?
10:36CWell, it’s funny, I remember the first time I was on the show, one of the things I mentioned is that I didn’t really have an interest in politics necessarily, but my interest was in activism and working with the community to empower the community. And since then, I’ve actually started to enter into the role as an activist, and it’s still something that I’m learning. But my approach to activism is, as an activist, one of the things that you have to do is to work with the community, to empower and educate the community, but that everything that an activist does has to be connected to the community that they work with.
11:11AAnd how do you do that? What are some of the things you do?
11:16CWell, the main thing I do is through education. I try to empower and inform the community through education, and from my experience, it’s been very successful in terms of educating people in African history. I’ve had situations where I’d be lecturing people on African history, and afterwards people feel so inspired to want to learn more about their history, or they feel very empowered to want to get out there and, you know, become more active. Because just knowing about our history, knowing about where we came from, uh, everything that our ancestors had to go through to, you know, have us reach the point where we’re at, really inspires people to take action and to continue that struggle.
11:50AWell, you know, you inspire me, but you have something even more inspiring -- those t-shirts. I know you didn’t have any to bring to the studio, but tell us about those t-shirts, the designs, and what they really represent.
12:04CI don’t have any yet because it’s still a new process. When I started doing books, it took me a while before I was earning enough to actually keep copies on me. So my hope is in the future, as I start earning more, I could keep a supply on me. But what I decided to do with t-shirts is I haven’t written so many books, I realized Another way to really educate people on our history and to get them to appreciate our history is through fashion. So my t-shirts, they’re mostly images with designs of important people in our history such as Queen Nzinga, Assantewaa, Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah. The most recent one I did is an image of Eric Williams, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
12:46AAlright.
12:47CAnd the reason why I do that is because I realize Sitting down and reading African history is one thing, but it’s a whole other feeling altogether, and it gives you more of a feeling of connection to African history to be able to walk around actually wearing that history on yourself. And the other thing I hope is that as more and more people buy my t-shirts and wear them out, is that maybe you might encounter someone that sees that t-shirt and wants to know who’s that person on the t-shirt. So that gives you an opportunity to now explain to that person, well, this is Nzinga, or this is Eric Williams. And And this is who that person is.
13:16AAbsolutely, absolutely. That’s very true. T-shirts serve -- I mean, they’re good marketing tools. They carry a good message. You know, I said before, you’re a young man actively engaged in several projects, activism projects that really enhance our community. You’re 26 years old. You write, you teach, you design t-shirts, you promote African history, and recently you co-founded the Justice Project Coalition of Central Florida. What was that organization? Why was it founded? What is its mission?
13:52CThe reason why it was founded is, um, one day we had a meeting. This happened last year. It was a meeting of different individuals in the community. At the meeting, we were talking to each other and we realized within our community there’s no organization for the people to go to. So let’s say an issue were to come out in the community, well, who do we go to? Who’s the representative of the community? So we formed this coalition, and the reason why it’s called the Justice Project Coalition is what we say is we’re bringing justice to the community in Central Florida. So the reason why we founded this organization is that we feel there needs to be some sort of organization that represents the community and gives the community a voice.
14:33AMm-hmm. What are some of the issues that you all have dealt with so far?
14:39CWell, we’re still in the process of forming the coalition and the first thing that we’re doing, the first step is to develop what we call a curriculum to educate leaders, to educate and to create leaders in the community. So we’re putting together a curriculum to educate people on certain qualities of leadership.
15:00AExcellent. We need that. We really, really need that. You know, many people, people of African descent, we value education. But I want you to elaborate on the role that education plays in community empowerment, and could you give us some examples of how communities use or could use education effectively to empower themselves?
15:28CWell, I mean, the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of African people and education is just the struggle that we’ve had to go through to even be able to educate ourselves in the first place. At one point, it used to be illegal to teach enslaved African people how to read, so we had to fight to win the ability to read legally. We had to fight to achieve equal education. So education has always been a struggle, and the reason why it’s been a struggle is because that is the key to an empowered African community. We can’t be oppressed if we’re properly educated.
15:59CAnd one great example of that is politics. If a community is really informed about the politics and everything that’s going on in terms of the politics of that community, they’ll be able to make informed decisions. And that’s also why I say education empowers the community, because if you understand the politics, then you could understand your role in the political structure, how to get involved, how to go about creating change. But what I found in dealing with the community is you have a lot of people that really, you know, don’t understand politics. They don’t understand what goes on in the community, so they have no idea where to even start, get started in terms of how to go about fixing certain problems in the community.
16:34AMm-hmm. Hmm. There’s a lot of work out there to be done.
16:39CLots of work.
16:39AA lot of community empowerment, and I hope our listeners would just, you know, think about these things and how you could make your community richer. It doesn’t have to be financially, but the quality of life, the way we think. You know, usually the way we think is -- what we do will follow the way we think. And if we have the information, we’d be thinking correctly. We’d be thinking unity, we’d be thinking development, we’d be thinking positively instead of otherwise, you know?
17:09CYes.
17:09AOkay, now I want to find out about some of the things that you would recommend to get more folks in our community to recognize the value of education and to act upon it? What are some of the things we can do? I mean, basic things, simple things.
17:29CTo get people to become more active?
17:32AYes, to become more active, to recognize the value of education, primarily.
17:37CWell, just speaking from my experience in dealing with people in the community, like I said, the main thing that I’ve noticed is just to get people to become aware of certain things. For example, I use this example, African history. Because African history isn’t taught in schools, a lot of people don’t know about it. So what I find is when people are exposed to it, they get very excited, very eager and anxious to learn more because it’s new to them. So what I realize is when people are exposed to education and they realize there’s more out there that I don’t know about, it kind of sparks a curiosity and a desire to learn. So Again, what I try to do as an activist is to just educate the community because I feel like once you educate the community, you empower the community. And I always feel like my job as an activist isn’t necessarily to go into the community to solve the issues, but to educate the community so that they could actually solve their own issues through empowering themselves.
18:28AMm-hmm. Dwayne, tell us about your parents. What influence do you think your parents had on you?
18:34COh, they’re a big influence.
18:36AA big influence.
18:37CFrom both parents. My father, I discuss politics with him all the time. He’s the one who introduced me to people like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King. The first book that I ever read about Malcolm X was something that my father bought for me.
18:51AWhich one was that?
18:52CMalcolm X Speaks. Then I read his autobiography shortly after. So my father kind of introduced me to the civil rights movement. We’d have conversations about Gandhi and the struggle in India. So I got a lot of that influence from him, and I also get it too from my mother’s side because our family is from Guyana. And there we had a guy, Walter Rodney, who was a very well-known activist and historian. And he was a member of a political party called the Working People’s Alliance. And my mother used to go to his rallies and listen to his speeches.
19:26AMm-hmm.
19:27CSo I think from both parents I get that influence. and a desire to want to go out there and get involved.
19:33AAbsolutely. So, so what is your next move academically? What are you going to be doing?
19:39CAcademically, I’m currently studying to get into law school.
19:43AVery good. I think you’re going to be an excellent lawyer.
19:47CThank you.
19:47AExcellent lawyer. Now, you know what, we almost at the end here, but you can tell us, is there anything you’d like listeners to know? Anything? you want to mention or reiterate?
19:59CUh, just reiterate that for anyone that’s interested in, um, finding my books, they’re all available through either Amazon or Barnes Noble.
20:07AAnd give us some of the titles so they know what they’re going to look for.
20:10COkay, one title is, uh, Poetry and Wisdom. That’s a poetry book. The Life Goals and Achievements of Marcus Garvey. That’s the book I mentioned about Marcus Garvey. And there’s another one that was actually the first book that I came on this show to be interviewed about was Malcolm X, Bob Marley, and other essays. So those are just some of the 15 titles that are available.
20:28AWell, before you go, I want you to tell us, in the last year, what do you think you have learned? Have you learned anything new about the steel pan?
20:40CActually, I did, and it’s relevant to what we’re talking about here. Let me pull up the name. So I found this organization called the Center for Arts-Inspired Learning.
20:49AMm-hmm.
20:49CAnd what I found is they have a program called the Science of Steel Pan. So what they do is they teach science through a steel pan. They go through the physics of how to tune a steel pan and produce the different notes. And that’s interesting in terms of really inspiring people to want to learn more and become interested in education because they’re using this musical instrument to not only teach science, but I was looking through the program They also teach culture and history. So here you have a musical instrument that could be used for teaching multiple different subjects.
21:24AWonderful, wonderful. I didn’t even know that. What’s the name of the organization?
21:28CI have the name here. It’s the Center for Arts-Inspired Learning.
21:33AThe Center for Arts-Inspired Learning. Arts-inspired learning. I love that.
21:39CYeah, and the program is Steelpan Science.
21:42AOkay, folks, the Center for Arts-Inspired Learning, and the program is Steel Pan Science. See, one instrument, you see that? One little instrument made of discarded oil drums that now, um, inspires science and culture and history. We really have to read and appreciate what the Creator has given us. You know, and to empower ourselves and to empower our communities. Well, um, is there any last words you’d like to say to our listeners?
22:16CNone that I can think of at the moment.
22:19AAll right, well, we just want to thank you for coming into the studio and sharing your inspiration with us. We want to wish you all the best with your books on Amazon, um, your teaching, your speaking, and of course your activism. We’re really proud of you. You’re always welcome to come back and visit with us and bring us up to date on what’s happening out there in Orlando.
22:44CThank you.
22:44AOkay folks, we just heard from Dwayne Akio Wong Omowale, the young author, teacher, speaker, activist, not only doing well for himself but making his community better. Hope you’ve enjoyed our musical selections from schools and universities with steel bands, And Steel Orchestra. The last word. Remember that mentor leadership is all about serving. Jesus said, and I quote, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many. And this comes from, uh, Tony Dungy. I think he was, uh, a coach, right? Okay, so remember, mentor leadership is all about serving. Sorry, it’s not about you. Taking us home from Jamaica, UWI Panarhythm Steel Orchestra with Stepping Out from the Steel Pan Alley album. Until next time, be encouraged, stay focused, drive safely, Enjoy your weekend. Thanks for listening. May God bless you all.
