"Professor Johnie Scott"

The Mission of the Signifyin' Monkey:


"Heritage, in essence, is the means by which people have used
their talents to create a history that gives them memories they
can respect and that they can use to command the respect of
other people. The ultimate purpose of heritage and heritage
teaching is to use people's talents to develop awareness and
pride in themselves so that they themselves can achieve good
relationships with other people."

-- John Henrik Clarke
from
"To Know One's History Is To Know Oneself"

 

This Website -- "The Signifyin' Monkey" -- was initially conceived and developed as a Field Study Project in completion of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing headed by noted poet Eloise Klein Healy at Antioch University's Southern California campus located in Marina del Rey. It is a major project requiring input from many minds. Thanks are in order for Dr. Crerar Douglas, Chair of Religious Studies at California State University, Northridge, for his kind suggestions. I want to also thank Sharman Russell, my MFA mentor at Antioch for her understanding and support during development of this project. Thanks also to Mr. LaRon Scott(no relation), a CSUN student double major in Engineering and PAS, along Mr. Stephen M. Thompson III, a sophomore majoring in Management Information Systems. These two young men not only did the bulk of the technical work, but they trained their former professor in JavaScript and HTML. They are proof of the genius, competence and capability of our young men. LaRon and Stephen give me the greatest confidence in how that next generation of African Americans will meet the coming Millennia. Further, thanks to Chris Sayles for his wizardry and computer knowledgeability so necessary to insure accuracy on this project . As Creator of THE SIGNIFYIN' MONKEY, I have been a faculty member at California State University, Northridge since 1984 in the Pan African Studies Department. I teach courses in Writing, Black Culture, Third World Cinema, African American Music and Contemporary Issues in the African American Community. As one of the original founding members of the Watts Writers Workshop started by author-screenwriter Budd Schulberg which emerged from the Watts Revolt of 1965, numerous honors and awards have come my way over the years including an Emmy nomination for The Angry Voices of Watts, a Greater Los Angeles Press Club Award for the groundbreaking 1975 series on Los Angeles' inner city street gangs entitled "Coming Home, To What?," and a coveted CASE Silver Award for my autobiographical essay on the 1992 Los Angeles Riots entitled "The Fire This Time" published by Stanford Magazine. I was elected in 1998 to the Academy of American Poets.

 

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