African learning
An activist's summer school teaches children about Africa

by Traci Moyer

A hot summer breeze rattled the homemade African flag on Mbanna Kantako’s front porch on north Fifth Street. The flag’s colorful beads and black plastic twine swayed hypnotically, dangling from a drinking straw with a string through it for hanging. The flag was made by a student at the summer school Kantako has been running for seventeen years.

Kantako, forty-three and blind, sat in the afternoon sun for more than an hour discussing human rights issues and his work in the community with Illinois Times. While known for his fight to operate an unlicensed underground radio station from his home, little has been said about his work with African-American children.

“I tell the young people that the one thing that changed my life and allowed me a sense of security was when I started learning who I am,” Kantako said. “I’m not an American, I’m not an African—I’m a captive child of Africa.”

For the past seventeen years, Kantako has taken children into his home—or any community space available—for the summers to help reafricanize them. He said his summer school, Rosa Parks Tenants Rights Association (TRA), was formed in 1985 and was originally intended to help children living in public housing. It evolved into a school that helps children develop a more afro-centric view of the world. Now, there is a waiting list for children three to sixteen years old to attend the school. He likes to keep the groups small with only fifteen children accepted each summer. In the camp, the children sing, share ideas, and learn about African culture. Only children of African descent can attend.

“We started using music to teach the children,” Kantako said. “It sure beats ‘London Bridges Falling Down’ or ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat.’ That’s not going to get you anywhere.”

The summer school, which runs from June 10 to August 21, is free. Kantako said while he gives his time away he is investing in the children and it is an investment worth his time.

Sunglasses hid Kantako’s eyes as he leaned forward to explain his beliefs and what he teaches his students. His wife Dia, forty-two, and two of his three children assist him with the school.

The exact term Kantako uses for what African-Americans have experienced over the years is “de-Africanized.” Making the children aware of who they are and where they originated from is important to understanding themselves, he said.

Kantako said he teaches the children the four R’s—restoration, restitution, reparation, and repatriation. He said the most important part of the school is to re-Africanize the children. He tries to teach them to respect the earth and life within it, which in today’s environment is difficult to achieve, he said. He said everything the children learn from society is based on an “I-got-more-than-you-got” philosophy.

Kantako said the summer school began as a program to help children gain self-confidence and learn new skills. He said it was supposed to complement District 186’s curriculum. When he tried to approach District 186 with his ideas, he was turned away.

After the school district’s rejection, he removed his children from Springfield public schools and began home schooling them. He said he still wants children to build self-confidence in his summer school, but the summer school is more like an African restoration program for the children who, he said, have been dispossessed of their land, language, and way of life.