You must judge a woman by the work of her hands. _-Africa

“I have a dream. A dream when we—[children of Africa]—will address each other the same way our forefathers addressed each other— that is by the African name. Pass the word around about how sweet, charming, and beautiful the names of our forefathers are.” -Kipkemboi Mugor

Recently Askhari Johnson Hodari quit school, but she is not a dropout. After seven years as a professor of African American Studies, psychology and women’s studies, (and three years as a special education teacher), she stepped away from the classroom to become a full-time writer. She is the author of two books, Lifelines: The Black Book of Proverbs (Broadway Press, 2009) and The African Book of Names (Health Communications, 2009).

Hodari earned her undergraduate degree from Spelman College and her Ph.D. from Howard University. She writes about a variety of academic and popular culture subjects, such as: prosocial behavior, social action, prejudice, domestic violence, prison systems, chattel slavery, African martial arts and electoral politics. However, she specializes in U.S. Black History, Africana/Black Studies, Black women’s studies, and Black psychology. Her work is culturally specific in terms of theme and treatment, emphasizing freedom, equity, truth, desire, determination, courage, community, contradiction, justice, respect and release. One of her goals is to record the unfolding of humanity by focusing on people who have been neglected and dismissed- people of color, oppressed people, poor people, children and humble people. Socially conscious writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Marcus Garvey, Ida B. Wells, James Baldwin, Sonia Sanchez, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Pablo Neruda, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Joseph Bruchac and Isabel Allende influence her.

A former journalist, Hodari has written and reported for the Afro-American newspapers in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD. Her work has appeared in Essence, Black Issues Book Reviews, Class, Catalyst, Rap Pages, and Urban Profile Magazines. Her poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in In the Tradition, Testimony, The Ringing Ear, and Role Call. Hodari is the founder and moderator of de Griot Space, an online writing workshop for Afridiasporic writers.

Besides writing, Hodari overdoses on community organizing, sports, sunrises and other things aggressive. Recently, she has given up: looking for money under sofa cushions, and trying to save the world. Now, when she is not practicing the Four Agreements, she picks sunflowers, grows lemons, counts butterflies, watches 24, listens to Sweet Honey in the Rock, Nina Simone, Prince, Etta James, Aretha Franklin and plays Taboo, Canasta and Spades.

Hodari regularly studies and travels the African diaspora.  Her family is from Marion, South Carolina, and she was raised in Montgomery County, Maryland. She now lives in the “magic city” of Birmingham, Alabama- a home of the successful struggle for civil and human rights. 

Other Work by the Author

LIFELINES
The Black Book of Proverbs
by Askhari Johnson Hodari and Yvonne McCalla Sobers

This illustrated treasury of proverbs unites the timeless wisdom of Black communities in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas, while speaking to the triumphs and challenges of everyday life. Learn more at the the official Lifelines site.

THE BLACK FACTS CALENDAR
by Askhari Johnson Hodari, Ph.D.

A Black History calendar that celebrates African descended people and uniquely lists at least one “Black fact” for each day of the year.

THE BLACK FACTS CALENDAR WOMEN
by Askhari Johnson Hodari, Ph.D.

A Black History calendar that celebrates African descended women.