Back in the day, we didn’t play.

We were young, on fire, and, as we used to say: ready for the revolution.

My brother Kenneth Ferdinand, who had been up in New York in graduate school for a minute, working with Father Lucas, came back home. In a house on a plot of land at the corner of St. Maurice and Law streets that my parents had purchased, Kenneth and Tayari, who was my wife at that time, started an independent school.

I don’t specifically remember the details, but I was down for the action. Shortly after Dowpwe Work Study Center was founded, our grouping split. Some of us wanted to concentrate on doing a school for youth, others of us wanted a political organization that would include a school in addition to community organizing activities. Ahidiana Work Study Center was born in 1973.

Among our numerous activities, we sponsored an annual Black Woman’s Conference, which, back in the early seventies, was both popular and unique. We were based in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans and worked around the city on selected issues. Our ongoing programs featured nationally known figures such as Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, Mari Evans, Haki Madhubuti, Sweet Honey In Rock, John Henry Clarke, Maulana Ron Karenga, and numerous Black Arts and Black Power advocates, organizers and speakers. We also received activists from around the world and organized a major trip to China.

Ahidiana lasted for fifteen years. 

Those were hard but beautiful years. We had no grants, no special favors from the city or the state. No patrons nor monied backers. We just did the dang thing.

All of our own watoto went to our school. Eventually we expanded up through fourth grade. Ahidiana was a community school. We had children from different sections of New Orleans. Our parents were from the projects as well as college-educated professionals.

Ahidiana students maintained a garden, in addition to educational work. They also participated in major demonstrations including picketing banks that sold the Krugerrand South African coin.

Here is the website about Ahidiana. Our history. Enjoy.

–Kalamu