Tayari and I gave birth to, and reared, five children. Three of them are daughters. Asante, Kiini, and Tiaji. The youngest lives in the wilderness surrounding D.C., where Tiaji works in the federal government. The middle child, Kiini, whom I sometimes half-jokingly/half-seriously refer to as the president of my fan club, is a professional writer domiciled in the ‘People’s Republic of Brooklyn’. And the eldest of the quintet, Asante, an arts administrator, lives but a few miles away from her obstinate father, on the west bank of our fabled city. However, there are a number of other young women whom I sometimes refer to as my daughters. And of whom I am exceedingly proud. Asali is one of them.

Hail Asali Devan Ecclesiastes. At the end of August 2019 she was announced the new director of Ashe Cultural Arts Center, a premiere arts institution in New Orleans. Asali was a long standing member of Nommo Literary Society, a writing workshop I co-founded with Kysha Brown Robinson (yes, another one of the clan of daughters of Salaam). Asali lived around the corner from my office in Treme. In fact we shot the movies ‘When Love Hurts’ on her front porch and ‘Baby Love’ in her kitchen. Asali is also a major spoken word artist among New Orleans writers, a pantheon of scribes that dates back to Les Cenelles in 1845.

Ashe Cultural Arts Center, of which Asali has become the second director, was birthed by Carol Bebelle and Douglas Redd. Carol, the retiring leader, is a longtime family friend and Doug, well, Doug was my artistic alter ego. He and I literally spent years together in sickness and in health, before his passing on July 18, 2007.

As is apparent from this brief description, I am close to and love a coterie of New Orleans people who are significant members of the New Orleans diaspora, a collection of men and women who give style and substance to our city’s future both locally and on a national basis.

Again, all hail, Asali Devan Ecclesiastes, an embodiment of Sankofa women–one who never forgets her past as she confidently strides into our future.