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Books by Louis Reyes Rivera
Sanchocho: A Book of Nuyorican Poetry /
Scattered
Scripture /
Bum Rush the Page
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On
the Passing of Rich Bartee
(10 October 1943 - 2 April 2003)
A Personal Note by Louis Reyes Rivera
On
Wednesday morning, April 2, 2003, at roughly 6am, Rich Bartee, the
'D' Train Poet, suffered a fatal heart attack on a Brooklyn, New
York bus.
That
following Monday evening, April 7, 2003, both the viewing and the
funeral for Bartee took place at his church, Christian Cultural
Center, in Brooklyn. He was interred that Tuesday morning at
Brooklyn's Evergreen Cemetery. He was 59, and New York City has
lost a great cultural soldier.
For the
past 35 years I have been graced, meeting and converging with many
wonderful artists and activists whose only desire has been to help
change the world -- the way we have done unto each other and the
treacherous ways with which we've been done by others. Change it
all -- through our activism and through our art.
And in
terms of this one specific arena of struggle we call New York
City, if there is such a single individual who most embodied the
spirit of what our local artists and activists have been doing
these past 35 years (some one spirit/force who was ever there,
constantly helping, assisting, encouraging, connecting us one with
the other, and urging the best in each of us), that person would
have to be Richard Bartee, Liberated Libra himself, whom I have
consistently known for at least 28 of those years. As Elombe Brath,
of the Patrice Lumumba Coalition, said to me, "Now that's
probably the only brother we know who had no enemies."
That's
right! And his most endearing quality was that he hardly if ever
would argue with you, even when he disagreed. He would instead
induce you with a smile and with such a calm sense of humanity
that eventually you would have to acknowledge and give ground to
his view.
For many
years, this author of poems, songs and slogans, among them the
book, America On Our Minds in Harlem (co-authored with
Jamel Carma), and the song, "Harlem Heartbeat," would
ride the 'D' train from the Bronx to Brooklyn, taking his poetry
directly to the people. He'd recite anywhere, convincing folks
that poetry indeed belonged to all of us -- selling pamphlets and
chapbooks while rewarding us with stickers that read: MORE
HUGGING, LESS MUGGING!, his most famous slogan, or those little
cards with mirrors in them. And when you'd open the card, the
inside would read to the effect that you are to love the person
you see in that little mirror...
He was
born in Florida, and had come to Harlem from Syracuse, in which
city he had been a policeman until he refused to join in to
brutalize a young Black prisoner and actually intervened on the
young man's behalf. For this, he was hounded, harassed, jailed and
fired for insubordination. That's what they call it when you
refuse to do like the rest of us on that job.
In New
York, he met 'Bama, the Village Poet, and Jamel Carma. And
together, in 1973, they opened up Poettential Unlimited Theater, a
loft space on 125th Street, in Harlem, where all were welcomed to
enter, enjoy, contribute and perform. Through Poettential, he
worked with many a poet, journalist and playwright, including El
Anna Cornelius, Abiola Sinclair, Linda Cousins, Tom Mitchelson,
and Garland Lee Thompson, the director of the Frank Silvera
Writers Workshop for budding playwrights, to name but a few of the
many.
In the
summer of 1975, George Edward Tait, Poet Laureate of the Black
Nationalist Movement, had founded The Society of Afrikan Poets and
made arrangements with Bartee to produce a series of poetry
readings at Poettential. The series, Black Words for a
Wednesday Night, commenced on Sept. 3, 1975, and although it
ran for seven years at several locations, its formative months
were at Bartee's Poettential Unlimited Theater and featured a most
formidable roster of poets. At the time Bartee and Tait were
collaborating, Gylan Kain of the Last Poets was facing a murder
charge, and the two agreed that a portion of the proceeds be
earmarked for the Gylan Kain Defense Fund. He was later exonerated
of all charges.
In 1977,
Bartee joined with Louis Reyes Rivera (Shamal Books), Brenda
Connor-Bey (MenWem Writers Workshop), Zakee Nadir (The Brownsville
Poets), Zizwe Ngafua (Calabash Poets Workshop), and Gary Johnston
& CD Grant (Blind Beggar Press) to form the first of many
city-wide collaborative efforts, this one manifesting in another
weekly reading series at the Club Baby Grand that became legendary
for its full houses and unique approach to networking. For close
to three years, the series became the honing ground for Open Mike
poetry readings, which was actually a poet's "workshop-in-performance,"
and the Baby Grand was known to out-of-towners as the place
through which to connect with New York's poetry circles.
A
stalwart constant with the Harlem Chamber of Commerce, the Harlem
Arts Alliance, and Brooklyn's Billie Holiday Theater, Bartee was
ever encouraging the inclusion of poets and musicians as regular
features in such annual community events as Harlem Week, Marcus
Garvey Day, and the African American Day Parade, culminating in
several poetry performances at the famed Apollo Theatre long
before Hip Hop and Spoken Word Jams took to the stage.
From 1986
thru 1994, he again collaborated with a number of alternative
presses known as Our Own Bookfair Consortium to produce five major
bookfairs in Harlem, two of which took place at the Schomburg
Library, and an untold number of other readings and public forums,
many of which took place at the Harlem State Office Building. Ever
the producer on behalf of cultural workers, Bartee also helped to
promote a number of other programs in Queens, working with John
Watusi Branch at the Afrikan Poetry Theatre, and with Layding
Kaliba (African Voices) to host yet another memorable series of
readings at the historic home of Langston Hughes on 127th Street.
Consistent
with his strong African oralist style in both poetry and being,
and with his sense of activist minister, he was a constant in his
church and its Prison Ministry, one who would also continuously
try to get poets to come to his church and check out his Reverend,
whose sermons and insights he respected highly. Consciously
combining his activism within both church and art, Bartee viewed
the Bible as an instrument for providing important developmental
keys to both the personal and the communal struggle.
For the
past three years prior to his passing, he was a member of SPIN,
the African Heritage Caucus inside of the National Writers Union,
and a member of the NWU's New York Local Steering Committee,
working with many of the aforementioned activist writers in an
attempt to form a Cultural Workers Union, a project that remains
unfinished.
Just
prior to his passing, he had been chosen as Treasurer for the
union's New York Local and was beginning to emerge as a national
leader of the NWU. In a word, Rich was both an activist of his
faith in God and on behalf of an Africana Art.
Having
joined with him on many of the projects he engaged, I can honestly
say that it has been both a pleasure and an honor to have known
and shared with Rich Bartee. And I'm sure that those of us who
knew him well will continue to shout and whisper his name.
(George Edward Tait, Linda
Cousins and Joel Washington contributed to this article.)
If you like this remembrance consider making a donation
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updated 29 May 2008 |
