Sonia Sanchez Visits College of Charleston
Sonia Sanchez made her first visit to South Carolina in years when she visited the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston on March 22.
This event was packed! Close to 100 people came to Avery to see Sonia, in which I got a chance to see many of my neighbors. There would have been more, but an African writers forum was going on the same time at the nearby Marriott. There was a ting on sadness at both events due to the passing of Chinua Achebe the day before.
Growing up in Alabama, Sonia said she started writing at age 6 when she wrote a poem about her grandmother. In between stories about her life, she shared several of her many poems. Sonia also talked about how she is helping put up peace murals in Philadelphia (where she lives) and how she reaches out to children, saying that "they are human beings." "We have to be innovated about peace, but we have to be peaceful ourselves," she said.
Sonia said that the new civil rights is education. "We must become activists again for education," she said.
Sonia had the audience enthralled for two hours. After the event, she took time to sign books and greet everyone who was in line. She even taught me a way to interact with children during our conversation! I know that it has been several years since she has been to the state (due to the Confederate Flag on the statehouse grounds) but I hope she visits our state again soon!
P.P.S. If anyone knows how to rotate a picture on Blogger, please put it in the comments! It will be greatly appreciated! As you can see, one of my pics is sideways.
ETA 1/31/14 Found a way to rotate the picture through Google! :-)
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