By Demetria Huntsman, Senior Program Officer, Akonadi Foundation
Picured (from the right): Demetria, Demetria's cousin Lyndsey, and Lydnsey's son Thelonious.
On Saturday, May 16th, I had the joy of being at San Antonio Park for the 26th Annual Malcolm X JazzArts Festival, hosted by the extraordinary EastSide Arts Alliance. Free to the community, open to everyone, alive with music and movement, it was exactly the kind of gathering that welcomes you home and reminds you why Oakland is, truly, unlike anywhere else.
The festival was attended by a multigenerational tapestry of folks, taking in live music, art, and good food. Vendors showcased their offerings, children and young people led freedom songs and break danced, while healers stood ready to greet you with open arms. Organizers invited us to see ourselves in the movement, sharing resources such as campaign and organization information, as well as ways to get involved. We ran into folks we haven’t seen in years and loved ones from different corners of our lives. We kneeled before the community altar and honored those no longer with us.
We gathered under the sun on park blankets and lawn chairs, interconnected, open, and basking in radical imagination – San Antonio park felt alive. We felt alive. It was a familiar feeling I’ve experienced in Oakland my entire life. It was The Town at its finest, when culture, healing, music, and organizing have the opportunity to emerge in the same space.
Every year, the Malcolm X Jazz Festival celebrates the teachings, life, and legacy of our beloved revolutionary leader, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. This year’s theme, “Community is The Heartbeat,” landed as a balm to every obstacle and as a call-in to resistance.
As an organizer for Black liberation, Malcolm understood something many political movements still struggle to fully embrace: that the fight for Black liberation is inseparable from the cultural imagination of Black people. He knew in order to organize people, you have to ensure they see themselves in all their power, dignity, beauty, and nuance. That is the work of artists and healers as much as it is the work of organizers.
Malcolm intentionally built relationships with musicians, athletes, and intellectuals who understood this fundamental belief, including jazz great Max Roach, who composed the protest album We Insist! Freedom Now Suite in 1960; poet Amiri Baraka (then LeRoi Jones), who, one day after Malcolm’s assassination, founded the Black Arts Movement; and author Alex Haley, who collaborated with Malcolm on The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
For so many of us, lifelong freedom fighters and organizers, The Autobiography of Malcolm X was our initial entry point to understanding the world around us, igniting us to live a life of service. Malcolm’s story has always been able to meet us where we are, allowing us to see ourselves in his journey, through the arc of transformation, self-determination, and political consciousness. He exemplified the simultaneous process of both learning and unlearning while giving us the courage to shift our mindset and bring our community along the journey. The Autobiography of Malcolm X taught us to love our people by any means necessary and fight ever so fiercely for our liberation. His example through this book continues to live on with absolute relevance to our movement today – that is the power of art in storytelling.
This work continues, more than ever, both individually and collectively. Akonadi remains grounded in the understanding that creativity has always advanced resistance, resilience, and transformation. We invest in artists, culture bearers, and healers who inspire joy, hope, and collective action because we believe the cultural infrastructure of our movement is as essential as campaigns, direct actions, and mutual aid. All are critical for us to build a world where we ALL thrive.
Thank you, EastSide Arts Alliance. What you have built and sustained for over two decades is a love letter to our community. In a political landscape that relentlessly tries to rob us of joy and hope, you keep creating space for it. And to Brother Malcolm, whose birthday we celebrate with full hearts, thank you for everything.
Happy Birthday, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. From all of us at Akonadi Foundation.
Learn more about EastSide Arts Alliance and the Malcolm X JazzArts Festival at eastsideartsalliance.org.
