An NAACP Image Award for IN THE NIGHT OF THE HEAT---and a complete list of winners!!!

CAPTION: (left to right) Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes on the red carpet at the 40th NAACP Image Awards. Photo credit: WireImage.com.

I’m excited to announce that Steven Barnes, Blair Underwood and I received the 2009 NAACP Image Award for our mystery collaboration In the Night of the Heat, the second novel in our Tennyson Hardwick mystery series! (I was also nominated for Blood Colony, my latest African Immortals novel.)

Wow. [For a complete list of winners announced Feb. 12, see the end of this entry.]

The other nominees in the category were my friend E. Lynn Harris for Just Too Good to be True, Bonnie Glover for Going Down South and James McBride for Song Yet Sung. Formidable competition, to say the least. So I didn’t expect to win—especially since the blessing of a double nomination meant that I was likely to split my voters.

I’ve only been nominated for an Image Award once before—for The Black Rose in 2001. I didn’t win. It was an amazing experience, and an eye-opening one: Since that night, I’ve watched the Oscars with much more empathy for the nominees who ALMOST got to take the statuette home.

This time, I told myself I was simply going to go and enjoy the ceremony at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. No expectations. My sister Lydia really wanted to fly in from Texas to support me, but she couldn’t arrange it—so I invited my friend Farai Chideya, an author and commentator. (Since Steve’s daughter, Nicki, couldn’t make it because of classes at UC Irvine, Steve invited his niece, Sharleen Higa.)

For almost a week, I was a ball of nerves. It took so much energy for me to prepare for the ceremony and the receptions and parties, I ended up writing notes for my acceptance speech in the car on the way. Even then, it felt like a foolish jinx to write anything at all.

The Novel category was presented in the pre-show, not televised live on Fox, but the pre-show had to run on time so that the live show could run on time later. (And no one wants to be the one cut off by the “get-off-the-stage” music they play at awards shows.)

We had 45 seconds for a speech. Blair had told us beforehand that if In the Night of the Heat won, he would accompany us to the stage, but he would leave the remarks to us. (Steve and I are the authors of the Tennyson Hardwick novels, and Blair is like our “producer,” with a strong hand in discussing content and the character who bears his face.)

Even split in half instead of thirds, that left only 22 seconds apiece for an acceptance speech.

And then there was the surreal element. When the name of our book was called, almost all rational thought fled my mind. I don’t remember the walk to the stage at all. All I know is that I ended up at the microphone first. I remember thanking my parents. I thanked Steve (“my collaborator and soul-mate.”) And I thanked Blair (“for his vision and a wonderful character in Tennyson Hardwick.”) And my editor, Malaika Adero at Atria Books. In retrospect, it seems as if I was just rattling off names.

Now that the fog of the day has cleared, I wish I’d had the time, or presence of mind, to say what the NAACP Image Award really means to me. My fantasy speech would have gone something like this:

“I stand here today on the 100th birthday of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, less than a month after the inauguration of the nation’s first black president, and I am humbled to receive this award.

First, I want to thank my parents, John Due and Patricia Stephens Due, who raised me and my sisters Johnita and Lydia to know our history—and to believe that an individual CAN change the world. For me, this is a homecoming. We were raised at NAACP meetings, attending NAACP conventions and demonstrations, and I was tested and trained as a young writer in the NAACP’s high school ACT-SO competition, founded by the late Vernon Jarrett.

I also want to give a special thank-you to the NAACP for being the only major Hollywood award that includes a Literary category! Thank you for recognizing that authors of fiction, non-fiction and poetry deserve a place at the Welcome Table, too.

I want to thank my collaborator and soul-mate Steven Barnes, an extraordinary teacher who has always given me room to fly. We have distinct voices in our solo work, but our collaborations have brought us new and surprising harmonies.

And thanks to Blair Underwood, who has taught us through example how to maintain grace and dignity in this battleground called Hollywood.

We conceived of the Tennyson Hardwick novels as a way to tell stories of healing and redemption that matter to all of us—while at the same time hoping to empower ourselves to have more control over how characters of color are portrayed on the screen.

We hope we are walking in the right direction.

Most importantly, thanks to God—who has brought us all thus far on the way. I have been blessed every day to make a living doing the thing I love. In these difficult economic times that are hitting writers hard, I cannot, and do not, take that for granted. I can only hope that through my writing I give back a portion of what has been given to me.”

Even that doesn’t sum it all up, but it’s closer.

The Image Awards included memorable performances by Jennifer Hudson, Stevie Wonder, Beyonce and will.i.am, along with a tribute to Nobel prize-winners Al Gore and Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai.

But my favorite moment was the tribute to Muhammad Ali, who suffers from Parkinson's disease and therefore could only sit on the stage. The crowd rose to its feet when he came into sight, and a booming chant erupted from the audience: “Ali! Ali! Ali!”

I was happy to have the chance to be in that room and shout the Champ’s name.

*****

BACKSTAGE AT THE IMAGE AWARDS

After we received our award, Blair ushered us out of the auditorium to walk the red carpet. Since red carpets are not a part of a writer’s normal life, we were happy for him to lead the way.

Even the walk out of the auditorium was great fun. As we passed through the rear, a gaggle of ladies who were fans of Blair’s let out appreciative, throaty hisses and calls, their voices just loud enough to be heard. “Hey, sexy!” “Love the book!”

Grinning, Blair turned to Steve and said, “See what happens when I hang out with y’all?” (Thanks, Blair—but book lovers or not, we doubt that the cloud of pheromones floating from those seats had much to do with our clever turns of phrase.)

Next, the red carpet, where a bank of about 40 photographers awaited. We stopped to pose at three spots along the carpet, and all the while the photographers tried to direct our gazes: “Blair, look up!” “Look left!” “Look right!” Flashbulbs strobed around us.

Other arrivals were posed behind us, and there were disgusted cries from the photographers when a publicist just behind Steve wouldn’t get out of the way of the shot.

Other arrivals that day included Halle Berry, Sean Combs, Dakota Fanning and a gaggle of other celebrities, so Blair made sure to explain who we were: “Image Award winners!” he said, and spelled our names out for them. When the cameras from “Access Hollywood” and “Entertainment Tonight” found Blair, he made sure we were included.

Not exactly a typical day in a writer’s life.

After the Image Awards, at one point we were standing fewer than five feet from Will Smith backstage, although we didn’t have a chance to speak to him—or his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith, who was with him. At the after-party, Steve and I shared a table with actress CCH Pounder (“The Shield”) and actor Jeffrey Wright. I also stopped at NAACP chairman Julian Bond’s table to give him greetings from my parents, who know him as civil rights activists.

All in all, it was an unforgettable night.

*******

Here is the complete list of 2009 NAACP Image Award winners.

Congratulations to all of the winners and Image Award nominees!

Outstanding Comedy Series
"Tyler Perry's House of Payne" (TBS)

Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series
LaVan Davis - "Tyler Perry's House of Payne" (TBS)

Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series
Tracee Ellis Ross - "Girlfriends" (CW)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Lance Gross
"Tyler Perry's House of Payne" (TBS)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
Keshia Knight Pulliam - "Tyler Perry's House of Payne" (TBS)

Outstanding Drama Series
"Grey's Anatomy" (ABC)

Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series
Hill Harper - "CSI: NY" (CBS)

Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series
Chandra Wilson - "Grey's Anatomy" (ABC)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Taye Diggs - "Private Practice" (ABC)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
Angela Bassett - "ER" (NBC)

Outstanding Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
"A Raisin in the Sun" (ABC)

Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
Sean Combs - "A Raisin in the Sun" (ABC)

Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
Phylicia Rashad - "A Raisin in the Sun" (ABC)

Outstanding Actor in a Daytime Drama Series
Bryton McClure - "The Young and the Restless" (CBS)

Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama Series
Debbi Morgan - "All My Children" (ABC)

Outstanding News/Information - Series or Special
"In Conversation: Michelle Obama Interview" (TVOne)

Outstanding Talk Series
"The View" (ABC)

Outstanding Reality Series
"American Idol 7" (FOX)

Outstanding Variety - Series or Special
"UNCF An Evening of Stars: Tribute to Smokey Robinson" (Syndicated)

Outstanding Children's Program
"Dora The Explorer" (Nickelodeon)

Outstanding Performance in a Youth/Children's Program - Series or Special
Keke Palmer - "True Jackson" (Nickelodeon)

Outstanding New Artist
Jennifer Hudson (Arista)

Outstanding Male Artist
Jamie Foxx (J Records)

Outstanding Female Artist
Beyoncé (MusicWorld/Columbia Records)

Outstanding Duo, Group or Collaboration
Jennifer Hudson feat. Fantasia - "I'm His Only Woman" (Arista)

Outstanding Jazz Artist
Natalie Cole - "Still Unforgettable" (DMI Records)

Outstanding Gospel Artist - Traditional or Contemporary
Mary Mary (Columbia Records)

Outstanding World Music Album
Cheryl Keyes - "Let Me Take You There" (Keycan Records)

Outstanding Music Video
"Yes We Can" - Will.i.am (Will.i.am Music Group/Interscope)

Outstanding Song
"Yes We Can" - Will.i.am (Will.i.am Music Group/Interscope)

Outstanding Album
Jennifer Hudson - "Jennifer Hudson" (Arista)

Outstanding Literary Work - Fiction
"In the Night of the Heat: A Tennyson Hardwick Novel" -
Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes (Simon & Schuster/Atria Books)

Outstanding Literary Work - Non-Fiction
"Letter to My Daughter" - Maya Angelou (Random House)

Outstanding Literary Work - Debut Author
"Barack, Race, and the Media: Drawing My Own Conclusion" -
David Glenn Brown (David G. Brown Studios)

Outstanding Literary Work - Biography/Auto-Biography
"The Legs Are the Last to Go" - Diahann Carroll (Amistad)

Outstanding Literary Work - Instructional
"32 Ways to Be a Champion in Business" - Earvin "Magic" Johnson (Crown Business)

Outstanding Literary Work - Poetry
"Hip Hop Speaks To Children: A Celebration of "Poetry With A Beat" -
Nikki Giovanni (Source Books/Jabberwocky)

Outstanding Literary Work - Children
"Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope" -
Nikki Grimes; Illustrator Bryan Collier (Simon & Schuster)

Outstanding Literary Work - Youth/Teens
"Letters to a Young Sister: Define Your Destiny" - Hill Harper (Gotham Books)

Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
Will Smith - "Seven Pounds" (Columbia Pictures)

Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture
Rosario Dawson - "Seven Pounds" (Columbia Pictures)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Columbus Short - "Cadillac Records" (Sony Music Film/Parkwood Pictures)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Taraji P. Henson - "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount)

Outstanding Motion Picture
"The Secret Life of Bees" (Fox Searchlight)

Outstanding Independent Motion Picture
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight)

Outstanding Documentary (Theatrical or Television)
"The Black List" (HBO)

Outstanding Foreign Motion Picture
"The Class" (Sony Pictures Classics)

Outstanding Directing in a Dramatic Series
Ernest Dickerson - "Lincoln Heights: The Day Before Tomorrow" (ABC Family)

Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series
Kevin Sullivan - "30 Rock: MILF Island" (NBC)

Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture (Theatrical or Television)
Gina Prince-Bythewood -"The Secret Life of Bees" (Fox Searchlight Pictures

Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture (Theatrical or Television)
Jenny Lumet - "Rachel Getting Married" (Sony Pictures Classics)

Outstanding Writing in a Dramatic Series
Shonda Rhimes - "Grey's Anatomy: Freedom Part 1 & 2" (ABC)

Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series
Erica D. Montolfo - "The Game: White Coats and White Lies" (CW)

Inauguration 2009: The light beyond my parents' tall shadows

“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.”
--Zora Neale Hurston

*******

My journey to Washington, D.C., with my parents—John Due and Dr. Patricia Stephens Due—and my sister Johnita ended, in many ways, as my family’s journey began: with an act of defiance.

For weeks before the inauguration, my mother had talked about wanting to gather soil in Washington, D.C. to take home and mingle with the rich red clay of Gadsden County, Florida, where she was born and lives now. Then, she would plant a tree in honor of the fallen foot-soldiers whose shoulders Barack Obama stood on to get where he is. I suggested that we make a pilgrimage to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and collect her soil near the White House grounds.

It was the day after President Barack Hussein Obama’s inauguration. Most of the masses had begun their way back home, but many of us still lingered. My parents and I reached the gate at the rear of the White House, an iconic image we know so well from movies and television—the visual symbol for the greatest power on planet Earth.

A sidewalk for visitors ran parallel to a restricted driveway where vehicles could only enter with proper identification. The only thing separating our pedestrian sidewalk from the restricted driveway was a thick ceremonial chain linked low to the ground—beyond the chain, a three-foot strip of colorless grass and soil, then the asphalt the police were guarding. The White House itself, closer to our sidewalk, was protected by a much higher iron gate.

After we posed in front of the White House gate, I noticed an eight-foot gap in the chain on the driveway side, so grass and soil were easily accessible. Seemed like a good spot! My parents agreed, so I brought out a little spoon and squatted to loosen at the hard soil so my mother would have enough to scoop into a little plastic bag.

With the White House gate less than six feet away and the Washington Monument behind her, my mother kneeled to gather the soil…and I readied my camera to take her picture.

We did not go unnoticed by the police officers monitoring the crowd. A uniformed young male officer approached my mother and said belligerently, “Move—NOW.”

My mother was kneeling, and in her heavy winter coat she was slow to rise. Instead, she tried to explain her purpose. When the officer cut her off, she seemed puzzled by his hostility.

“You stay on THIS side of the chain—that’s why it’s there. Move NOW,” he said again, in that voice that most people would leap to obey.

But my mother is not most people. She has never been one to simply do as she was told, whether by a police officer or anyone else. And this police officer had a sharpness in his tone that brought back bad memories of police officers in Tallahassee, Ocala, St. Petersburg, Miami and New York who had carted her to jail in the 1960s.

In those days, the only terrorism in the news was domestic—but those bomb blasts and attacks by police dogs and fire hoses were never called “terrorism.” On that winter day after the inauguration of the 44th president, my mother was still wearing the dark glasses she has been forced to wear since a police officer lobbed a teargas canister in her face during a peaceful Tallahassee march when she was only 19. Her eyes have been sensitive to light indoors and outdoors since.

My mother spent 49 days in jail for sitting-in at a Woolworth lunch counter. The police had tried to order her to move back then, too. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sent a telegram to her and the four other Florida A&M students, including my aunt, Priscilla Stephens Kruize, who were a part of that Jail-In. (It was the nation's first Jail-In during the student sit-in movement.)

The confrontations didn’t end in the 1960s: In 1992, in the wake of Hurricane Andrew in Miami, my mother faced off against a swarm of police officers who raided my parents’ property in the dead of night because of a mistaken report of a “suspicious black man in a white van.” By pure luck, my parents and cousin were not hurt that night.

At the White House gate, as I saw the growing defiance on my mother’s hardening face, I had a nightmarish vision of our once-in-a-lifetime inauguration trip ending at the police station and on the nightly news. My father and I hushed her and coaxed her away, promising better soil elsewhere. (For a time, two or three officers followed us, watching.)

My mother got her soil. Upon the advice of a kindly White House park ranger posted near the visitor entrance, we chose softer, richer soil in a non-restricted area. My mother was more afraid of the hungry, fearless squirrel approaching her than she had been of the police officer. She scooped up as much as she liked—far better soil than at the other site.

Later, we could laugh. My sister Johnita, who had stayed behind in our warm hotel room, was aghast at the story: Whey didn’t Mom simply do as she was told right away?

“Don’t you know your mother by now?” my father said.

*******

My family’s character has always been shaped by my parents’ courtship in the civil rights era. Instead of “dating,” they went to meetings and protests together—and fell in love.

My mother was visible and audible on the front lines. My father’s legal mind toiled and strategized behind the scenes. He once represented Dr. King after in arrest in St. Augustine, and helped pioneer an important strategy to bypass state courts in civil rights cases.

My parents raised us in meetings and on picket lines. Last year, we celebrated an early family holiday on Election Night, when my sisters and I brought our families to watch the returns in Quincy, Florida. I’ll never forget the shout of joy that rang through the house when the words “President-elect Barack Obama” first appeared on the television screen.

Naturally, my parents wanted to go to Washington for the inauguration.

But decades of community activism and political involvement had not borne any offers for tickets. My parents are great at giving, but not so good at asking—so my sisters and I asked on their behalf. I posted a blog entry right here, wrote letters and begged my Facebook friends.

My sister, in a leap of faith, booked us a hotel room to share. Tickets or no tickets, we wanted to experience the inauguration too.

Moments before my redeye took off for Washington, a sudden email appeared on my phone: TICKETS!!!! Andre L. Gaines, a screenwriter I met when I spoke at my alma mater Northwestern University years ago, had a friend who works for someone in the Obama administration. He’d forwarded the email with my blog essay, and when his friend read it, he offered my parents Silver tickets.

I rushed straight from the airport to the convention center to pick up the tickets. “After that email you sent…it was the least we could do,” Andre’s friend said.

The honor of your presence is requested is requested at the ceremonies attending the inauguration of the President and Vice-President of the United States…

Alone, when I held the two tickets in my unsteady hands and read them, I cried.

And so my trip to Washington began with tears.

And blood.

I’ve never had a nosebleed before—but as I sat in the Starbucks in the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel the morning I arrived with my tickets, I realized my nose was bleeding. Excitement? Dry, cold air? At the time, I was typing a journal entry on my laptop…and when the initial surprise passed, I plugged my nose with a Kleenex and typed one-handed, rapid-fire.

As I think back on it, the blood was symbolic. My mother and I wrote a memoir together, Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights—not to mention our virtual home-schooling on black history twelve months a year—so I didn’t need Martin Luther King Day to remind me of how much blood had been spilled. A little nosebleed seemed like a small price to pay. I barely noticed; I didn’t even excuse myself from a crowded table to go to the restroom.

I had too much to write about.

******

SUNDAY, JANUARY 18

I was on a budget, as usual, so I didn’t pay to attend any balls—but my sister had been invited to two free functions and brought me as her guest: One to a Reception sponsored by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (a friend of Obama’s whom many political insiders believe taught Obama a thing or two about politics), and then to the Inaugural Ball sponsored by TheRoot.com, co-founded by Henry Louis Gates.

The Root’s ball was a Who’s Who. I ran into an old friend, author Amy Alexander, and we wandered the room with her friend Victor, who pulled me out of my shyness. I got a polite smooch from Spike Lee, who told me I was a “marvelous writer.” I had a quick chat with director John Singleton, who remembered me from an earlier meeting. I ran into my friend, author and commentator Farai Chideya, who was with her mother.

We even had an Oprah moment! We were standing beside an elevator when The Original O herself climbed out, and for a moment I was standing only five feet from her. My hand was practically outstretched for an introduction (we spoke on the phone years ago, and I know she enjoyed my novel My Soul to Keep), but her burly bodyguard was suddenly standing between us. Another elevator car opened, and she was gone in a blink.

(Maybe next time, Oprah!)

Other attendees included Alice Walker, Bob Woodward, Chris Tucker, Biz Markie (who deejayed!), a slew of former co-workers from The Miami Herald, and too many others to mention.

And the week was just getting started.

*******

MONDAY, JANUARY 19

Monday was Martin Luther King Day. My mother stayed behind in the hotel room, but Johnita, Dad and I went to the Washington Monument to join the eager crowds anticipating a history-making day. In August of 1963, married only since January, my parents journeyed to Washington on the "Freedom Train" to attend the March on Washington as special guests. Returning 46 years later, my father was brimming with memories as the past and present collided.

It felt like coming Home.

I’ll never forget the ocean of smiles. Smiles were our universal language.

Jumbotrons played excerpts from Barack Obama’s remarks on Sunday, his voice ringing across the Reflecting Pool and throughout the National Mall. Sojourners of all races, ages and ethnicities from across the country and the world snapped photos of strangers who asked. Wheelchairs were plastered with Obama stickers. Obama’s name was on hats, scarves, jackets, purses, and buttons, reminiscent of a giant sporting event where everyone was rooting for the same team.

Politeness unparalleled. Shining eyes. Everyone shining. All races. No races.

My father recalled his earlier visits for the March on Washington and the Million Man March, gazing at the wonder of Now. My sister, father and I took a photo in front of the Washington Monument, standing tall to stab the cloudy sky.

But there were no clouds in the faces of those of us gathered there.

There was an Illinois Ball in our hotel that night, and German shepherds on leashes led Special Police officers through the lobby. These weren’t the dogs of Birmingham, Selma and Tallahassee, even if they were the same breed. These were the dogs of The New Day.

Irony visible in every blink of the eye.

An older white woman sitting primly in ball finery in the lobby—someone’s grandmother—held a striking vinyl handbag with Barack Obama’s image, so I asked her if I could take a picture of her with my video camera. She agreed. “You should see the other side!” her female companion said, and she flipped it over to show another photo: Barack with Michelle, Malia and Sasha, all grinning.

The Obama family’s faces pulled me out of videographer mode, and I was just a witness again: I stared, struck anew. A black family so much like mine—on this woman’s purse.

(Why can’t I write about these days without tears?

As a child, my family was not welcome. When I was three years old, my parents tried to enroll me in Montessori school in Miami, but no school would accept me because of my brown skin. I went home and covered the offending skin in baby powder. “Mommy, will they let me go to school now?” In the fifth grade, young children and teenagers called me “nigger” as I walked to elementary school. Our neighbors threw tomatoes at our Cutler Ridge house and put rocks in our gas tank.

We were a part of the neighborhood, but apart from the neighborhood.

A part of the nation, but apart from the nation.

Pain with nowhere to go, except in my writing. Pain taught me how to write.)

“What a beautiful purse!” I said, smiling. The rest could not be put to words.

The lobby flooded with ball-goers and security officials as motorcades and police motorcycles wailed past on the streets outside. Red velvet ropes and blue security lights checking identification. A school-mascot style giant Abraham Lincoln strolled the lobby floor.

U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. passed me, walking toward the elevator, and I called to him to introduce him to my parents. “Congratulations to us all,” he said.

Inside the hotel bar, called the Presidents’ Sports Bar, a large black and white photo of Barack Obama as a young boy with a baseball bat had a prime spot—a stone's throw from photos of Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.

What strange world is this?

Whatever dream this is, please don’t let me wake up.

*******

TUESDAY, JANUARY 20

INAUGURATION DAY

Our wake-up call came at six a.m. as directed, but when we turned on CNN we could see that we had overslept by hours. The Mall was already crowded with those who had been up since four, or those who could not sleep at all.

As we rushed to dress, Johnita learned that she had an offer for even more coveted Purple tickets for our parents—in the standing Senate section, right in front of the Capitol. We only had to make it to Sixth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, blocks from the Capitol, to pick them up!

By that time, my cold-weary sister had already decided that she wanted to watch the inauguration indoors at the Newseum rather than trying to use the Silver tickets, so I planned to walk my parents to their Purple section seats and then fare the best I could. We set out together, but we expected to be separated before the swearing-in ceremony.

A driver got us as close to our destination as road closures allowed, and then we walked, melting into the wall of humanity literally blocking the street.

It was 8 a.m. By inauguration standards, it was very late.

When there was no movement forward in the crowd, we found an alley. When police on the other side told us we could not pass, we ducked into the coffee shop on the corner to circumvent the blockage. We walked with a mission.

We had only been outside for a few minutes, but my fingertips and ears were already tingling in the cold. (Yes, Northwestern University is in Evanston, Illinois, right outside of Chicago, but I loathe the cold!) I cast suspicious gazes at my father’s thin, fleece-lined coat, wondering how in the world he would last the day.

Once we reached the Newseum, where our new tickets awaited, we stood outside with a crowd for 15 or 20 minutes while our entrance was negotiated with the guards at the door.
Inside—we savored the heated hallways.

From the rooftop, we had a great view of the Capitol building only three blocks down the street—seemingly close enough to touch!

One last family meeting, and Johnita hugged us before my parents and I set down in the elevator armed with two Purple tickets. Cell phone service was spotty, so I knew that it was possible I wouldn’t be able to get back inside after I walked with my parents—assuming I could make it back that far at all!

At the door, we asked a U.S. Marshal advice about the best route.

“This street is closed,” he said. “You’ll have to go to Seventh, and then the gates won’t even open until 11.”

Our resolve deflated. For a ceremony beginning at 11:30 a.m., that was cutting it close.

“What would YOU do?” I asked him.

“I would stay here,” he said.

And so we did.

(After reading about the horrific difficulties experienced by Purple ticketholders in particular, thousands of whom were stuck huddled in a claustrophobic tunnel for hours, I am thankful every day that we made that decision. I mourn for a nameless elderly black woman I read about who called it the worst experience of her life—and many others suffered too.)

We had a lobby and large television screen practically to ourselves indoors—and when we wanted to brave the cold, we could go to the rooftop and see Pennsylvania Avenue below us, lined with police officers on either side.

On one end, we could see the Capitol building—and on the other, almost out of sight, the blur of the crowds at the Mall. (I was on the rooftop when I saw former President George W. Bush’s helicopter fly away.)

A shout filled the streets, and we saw a motorcade pass under our noses on Pennsylvania Avenue. After snapping a rooftop photo of my parents with the Capitol in the background, we went inside to watch the proceedings on TV.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, hours before his collapse, looked hale and joyful on the monitor. The appearance of former President Jimmy Carter reminded me of being Malia’s age, when my family was invited to meet then-candidate Carter and pose for a photo with our family and the late Florida Rep. Gwendolyn Cherry at a Miami hotel.

Malia and Sasha appeared on the TV screen like Sunshine itself.

There were others in and out of the lobby—other observers whose names, for the most part, we did not learn. Cooks watched from a far end of the hallway while police officers with bomb-sniffing dogs patrolled the elevators and rooftop.

But my family might as well have been alone.

When the ceremony began, we sat in a row on a sofa, mesmerized, our hands unconsciously clutching at each other as we watched the images unfold—my father’s hand on my sister’s shoulder, my sister’s hands on my father’s knee and mine, my hand on my sister’s knee and my mother’s, my mother’s arm around my shoulder. A human chain. (We missed you, Lydia, but we know you were there with us, too!)

At noon, while the gorgeous John Williams musical composition played, a caption on CNN’s screen pointed out that Barack Obama had just officially become president although he had not been sworn in. On television, I saw Michelle reach to her husband from where she sat behind him…and gently squeeze his shoulder.

A human chain.

We watched the oath, practically holding our breath. There were no shouts, no cries—only the silence of our witnessing. We all shed tears.

During President Obama’s inaugural address, I grabbed my video camera and ran back up to the rooftop, where I could hear his voice ringing up and down the street. The words were muffled to my hearing, but the resolve was clear.

My family was on the rooftop together when President Obama’s motorcade drove down Pennsylvania Avenue behind the V formation of police motorcycles—Secret Service officers walking beside the slow-moving vehicles—and the street erupted with a roar that seemed to shake the walls around me. The floor beneath me.

The roar shook me to my bones.

“He’s getting out of the car!” a voice cried from the other side of our rooftop, and although we ran as quickly as we could to try to get a better angle, the new President and First Lady were out of our sight.

We rushed back inside to see with our own eyes on TV.

There on Pennsylvania Avenue, Barack and Michelle Obama walked, smiling and waving. They walked free of fear.

On inauguration day, we all walked.

*******

Our rooftop perch gave us a great view of the parade.

My mother was a junior at Florida A&M University the first time she was arrested, and my father attended law school there to become a civil rights soldier in his own way. Although women weren’t permitted to march in the band in the late-1950s, my mother played trumpet and bassoon in FAMU’s highly-esteemed concert and symphonic bands. (In junior high school band, I used to play trumpet duets with her.)

My parents contributed money to help the 400 members of FAMU’s marching band attend the inauguration parade—and we were watching from above as the band’s opening peals of “Celebration” filled Pennsylvania Avenue. My parents shouted and waved, as excited as children again.

When my mother was their age, she gave up childish things. And, like all veterans, my parents have not often made room for joy.

As the FAMU band played on, I saw the young people they might have been.

Thank you, Mom and Dad!

Thank you to the fallen of all races who did not live to see the day.

A simple appeal: Inauguration tickets for my parents

CAPTION: John Due and Dr. Patricia Stephens Due with infant Tananarive


I am looking for Inauguration tickets for my parents, who are longtime civil rights activists in Florida named John Due and Dr. Patricia Stephens Due. Beyond my campaign calls and carefully-budgeted contributions, I am a political outsider…so I am making a simple appeal.

My parent celebrated their 46th wedding anniversary on Jan. 5, and the first lesson they passed to their three daughters was the most profound lesson there is: Individuals can change the world for the better.

My parents were foot-soldiers in the civil rights struggle. Like thousands of other activists of all races, they never got a holiday or a stamp—but without their sacrifices in the 1960s and beyond, we would not be inaugurating Barack Obama on Jan. 20.

As the late novelist Octavia E. Butler told us, “The only lasting truth is Change.”

But change always comes with a price.

To this day, my mother wears dark glasses even indoors because her eyes were injured by a teargas bomb thrown in her face by a police officer during a nonviolent march in Tallahassee in 1960. She was also shot at while trying to register Florida voters in 1963 and 1964. My father, who once represented Dr. King after an arrest in St. Augustine, got a call from the FBI warning him that he might be the target of a racist’s bomb—and that was in the late-1980s. U.S. bombings were in the news; home-grown, just like in Birmingham. I remember that call well.

So, yes—I want my parents to see the official ceremony up close; far more than I want to actually witness the Inauguration myself…although I surely do. My parents wouldn’t only be attending for themselves: They would be there on behalf of the countless other activists who did not, or could not, make it to witness this day.

In 2003, my mother and I published a memoir we co-authored: Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights. Researching that book about ordinary people doing extraordinary things, I learned first-hand how many of the 1960s activists did not make it to 2009 in body, mind or spirit. The war against them took a toll that is still vibrating through the next generations, and time is stealing them away day by day.

But some of them, like my parents, made it to Election Night. And Inauguration Day.

My mother talks about bringing back soil from Washington, D.C., to mix with the red clay of her birthplace in Gadsden County, Florida. Then she wants to plant a tree in honor of all of the foot-soldiers whose shoulders President-elect Obama is standing on.

Neither of my parents expected to get caught up in a political movement when they went to college. But in 1960, as a junior, my mother was arrested at a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth lunch counter in Tallahassee. When she refused to pay her fine, my mother, aunt and three other Florida A&M students spent 49 days in jail, becoming the nation’s first Jail-In.

They received a telegram of support from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and baseball great Jackie Robinson published a letter my mother wrote from jail in his New York Post column.

My father, then in college in Indiana, read about my mother in Jet magazine and applied to Florida A&M’s law school so he, too, could join the movement sweeping the South.

The rest is history. A lifelong match was born. This weekend, my father wrote my mother a heartfelt note explaining why he wouldn’t dream of attending the Inauguration without her if they couldn't both arrange to go: “To go without you—when we are life partners—would have been like going to the 1963 March on Washington without you. It would have been impossible.”

Most children think their parents are special, but my sisters and I had constant confirmation. We saw their names cited in books. The phone rang constantly; people and organizations in need of guidance or support. One day, my mother put in a call to the governor’s office, and then-Gov. Bob Graham called back within an hour.

Although I attended public schools, my parents practically home-schooled me and my sisters with children’s books about Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, black cowboys and other oft-overlooked figures in American history. Mom, in particular, didn’t just haul it out in February: We heard about our history all year long.

While my parents often reminded us that Martin Luther King Jr. was just a man like anyone else, we always took the day off from school for his birthday, long before there was a national holiday. We drove to Miami’s Torch of Friendship and stood in a circle to say what Dr. King had meant to us. Then we would have pancakes and go home, where often my parents opened up the house to guests—activists and politicians and students—and played speeches and watched footage. Dr. King’s vibrato delivery always brought tears to my eyes.

Knowing that history—and the pride and perspective it gave me—meant the world to me. That’s why history is so firmly fixed in nearly everything I write. History has great power.

When Roots swept the nation in 1976 and I wanted to learn my family tree, my father told me story about freed slaves who built their own community in Indiana called Lyles Station—and fought off an attack by jealous whites. He even drew me pictures of a rousing battle in a round-house barn, with women handing their men rifles as the men stood firing from the rafters.
I had never heard a story like that in any of my history books.

I didn’t follow the path of the activist, and my parents supported my passion to spread ideas using my writing rather than a picket signs or a megaphone. (Although, trust me, I’ve had plenty of experiences with picket signs, and even a megaphone…)

When I left the anti-apartheid takeover of the administration building at Northwestern University in the late-1980s to go out to dinner with a departing friend—rather than face arrest like my more courageous mates—I was embarrassed to tell my mother that I’d sold out.

But when I called Mom to relate the shameful tale, she said, “Darling, I’m glad you didn’t get arrested. I went to jail so you wouldn’t have to.”

I went to jail so you wouldn’t have to.

Those are powerful words for a child to hear from her mother.

Instead of celebrating Thanksgiving or Christmas as a family last year, my sisters and I brought our families, including five grandchildren, to visit my parents in Quincy, Florida so we could all watch the election returns together. It was a night I’ll never forget.

But I can only imagine what it meant to my parents. And because of their sacrifices as students, I was permitted the luxury of an extended childhood throughout my college years. I had time to develop my craft by day and fill my nights with laughter.

My parents are in fairly good health, but they are 69 and 74. The trip to Washington, D.C. won’t be easy on them. But they want to go.

And since they’re going…I wish they had Inauguration tickets.

All I can offer is gratitude, but if you know of available tickets, please contact me at TheLivingBlood@gmail.com.

NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINATIONS for Tananarive

Some months—some years—start out just right.

Last week, I was checking in on Facebook when I saw a note on my Wall from Blair Underwood’s publicist: CONGRATS ON THE IMAGE AWARD NOM!!!!

What nomination?

She said Blair Underwood, Steve and I had received an NAACP Image Award nomination for In the Night of the Heat.

I had heard nothing about it. I haven’t been nominated for an NAACP Image Award since The Black Rose in 2001, so I had gotten out of the habit of checking. When I saw the website at http:/www.naacpimageawards.net/40/releases/40th_nia_nominees_release.pdf, I almost fell out of my chair:

I received TWO nominations: for In the Night of the Heat, my mystery collaboration with Blair and my husband, Steven Barnes--AND Blood Colony, the latest in my African Immortals series. I am grateful beyond expression.

(The NAACP Image Awards will be broadcast on Fox at 8 p.m. Feb. 12. To cast a vote, join the NAACP at http://www.naacpimageawards.net/40/nom_info.php. Wish us luck!)

It’s not just a feeling of affirmation after years of walking a difficult literary road. It’s not just that In the Night of the Heat celebrates my 10-year life partnership, and creative collaborations, with the wonderful Steven Barnes. Or that it’s a sign that our partnership with the talented Blair Underwood is bearing fruit, helping pave the way for the movies we all crave.

It’s much deeper than that.

When I was growing up, my parents used to pack us up every summer to attend NAACP national conventions. I was raised on the oratory of Benjamin L. Hooks and Ted Kennedy, and on NAACP picket lines.

As a high school student, I was a winner in the NAACP’s academic competition—the Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics, or ACT-SO, founded by Chicago columnist Vernon Jarrett. Each summer, I swam in a sea of brilliant high school students of color from around the nation, and we nourished each other’s dreams. The NAACP’s ACT-SO is one of the finest youth programs there is.

And, as the former president of the Greater Miami NAACP Youth Council, I know my NAACP history: The interracial civil rights organization was founded 100 years ago, in 1909.

Frankly, it all just takes my breath away.

And this is a month that is already full of might.

A presidential candidate who electrified my imagination since the day in April 2007 when I heard him speak at my church, First AME Church of Los Angeles, is about to be inaugurated the first black president: I am rarely right about any sweeping predictions, but I knew Barack Obama could win that day. I was so sure, I typed a transcript of his speech and sent it to my friends—and later posted it on my blog [1/7/08].

On election night, a shout of joy in my parents’ living room echoed against the framed plaques and newspaper articles that bespoke the price of the journey. A television screen as big as life proclaimed it: PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA.

On some level, I still don’t believe it.

This weekend, my parents and one of my sisters will meet me in Washington, D.C., for a family sojourn to the place where history will be engraved forever. None of us has a ticket to the actual Inauguration—not yet—but we want to breathe the city’s air that day. Together.

Even in these very scary economic times, it all feels like riches beyond measure.

Thank you, NAACP.

And thank you, readers, for the honor of telling you stories.

BEDTIME STORIES: My love affair with audio books

My name is Tananarive Due, and I am addicted to bedtime stories.

I have grown so accustomed to listening to audio books as I go to sleep at night that it’s now very hard for me to sleep without the steady burr of a voice in my ear. Common sense tells me it’s a bad habit, like leaving the TV on all night, and yet I can’t take off my headphones.

When I was preparing a lecture on Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred last year and couldn’t bring myself to open her book—her loss was still too raw—I found that I could listen to the audio book instead. The storyteller gave me a bridge back to Octavia.

Now, it has become a full-fledged dependency. I just finished listening to the unabridged version of my novel Joplin’s Ghost. Barack Obama’s self-recorded version of Dreams From my Father, which I listened to during the primaries, was a revelation.

Fiction is my favorite, but college-level lectures make great bedtime stories too. (I listened to several great theology courses from The Teaching Company while I was researching Blood Colony.)

Rewinding is a constant fact of life—after all, I’m bound to lose my place when I fall asleep, and sometimes I’ve found myself listening to the same 10-minute patch night after night because I can’t stay awake longer—but that seems a small price to pay.

Now, my habit has followed me to my car, where I hook up my iPod, tape recorder or CD player through the car’s sound system. Or the supermarket, where I listen while I shop. Or in the kitchen while I’m cooking. I now officially spend more time listening to audio books than I do actually reading.

At Recorded Books, there are also audio versions of My Soul to Keep, The Living Blood, The Good House (which I also recently listened to while revising my screenplay version) and Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights. Tantor Media also released an audio version of Casanegra.

Wish I could tell you that my audio books would make great stocking stuffers, but the Recorded Books versions are expensive—more designed for libraries than purchase: Joplin’s Ghost, for example, is listed at between $61.75 to $113.75 on the Recorded Books website. But they do have a weekly rental rate for about the cost of a hardcover novel.

I loved actress Lizan Mitchell’s performance of Joplin’s Ghost (2005) for Recorded Books. I’m revisiting that novel because I’m ready to start brainstorming on a screenplay adaptation, so I got over my shyness about my own prose long enough to listen to the story.

Lucky me! I had forgotten enough that I was able to listen as if someone else had written the book. And while I couldn’t help making silent edits in my head, I never outright winced. I’ll just be honest: I was captivated. It was scarier than I remembered, and I enjoyed the love stories in both of the novel’s timelines. There were also strains of Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” at the breaks, adding a new dimension. What fun!

Although My Soul to Keep and The Good House are both in film development at Fox Searchlight, voice actors are my only taste of how an outside artist would interpret my work thus far. In fact, with Lizan Mitchell’s performance fresh in my head, I did a much more convincing rendering of a scene between Scott Joplin and a country conjurer when I read from Joplin’s Ghost at Antioch University Los Angeles this week.

If you haven’t read Joplin’s Ghost, here’s the plot: An R&B singer at a crossroads in her career encounters the ghost of ragtime composer Scott Joplin at the Scott Joplin House in St. Louis—and he follows her. I came up with the idea after meeting the site’s former curator, who has since passed away…and he told me he had seen a ghost in Scott Joplin’s parlor.

Phoenix, my singer, is at a crossroads because she’s trying to record conventionally “black” commercial music instead of the music she hears in her head. And Joplin himself, who died in 1917 after debilitating syphilis and heartbreak because he wasn’t taken seriously as an opera composer, also struggled with the constant tug-of-war between art and commerce.

I wrote Joplin’s Ghost because of my own balancing act as a full-time writer—my writing has to sell, but I also want to write what’s in my heart. That is a battle that is becoming more pronounced for writers as tough times descend on the publishing industry.

I have also been saddened, over the years, to see the decline of instrumental music among black artists, when previous generations of black artists pioneered ragtime, jazz, funk and rock and roll. (I remember the days in elementary school when the music teacher rolled a cart from classroom to classroom so that students could choose the instrument they wanted to play in the school band. Those days, sadly, are long gone in most schools…)

The audio book brought Joplin’s Ghost to life, just as all audio good audio books do.

But just as when we turn the last pages of a book we have carried with us everywhere for days, weeks or months, there is a sense of loss when the story is over. The characters vanish. The world of the book disappears.

And I can’t let a night go by before I have chosen another.

This time, I have Stephen King’s short story collection, Just After Sunset: Stories. I’m a Stephen King fan from way back--and, like King, I think novelists should also keep their short fiction skills sharp. I want to publish a collection of short stories myself, so I’m eager to see where King will go.

Am I worried about having Stephen King’s stories romping in my head as I try to go to sleep at night? Maybe a little. But I prefer a storyteller’s fancies to the whispers about real life’s sorrows past and future that sometimes burrow into my head when I try to sleep at night.

Now...excuse me while I put on my headphones.

Wish me sweet dreams.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS:

HOLIDAY GREETINGS!!!

It’s a time of great joy in many of my circles, but also great uncertainty…so my thoughts and prayers are with you during this holiday season and throughout 2009!

Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa and Happy Holidays, everyone!

A CALL FOR DONATIONS FROM UP SOUTH IN N.Y.

This is an announcement my editor, Malaika Adero, sent me in conjunction with a program being planned in my honor in New York this March. I promised I would pass it along:

We Need Your Support….
Join Up South, Inc.
in partnership with Medgar Evers Center for Black Literature
as we celebrate

TANANARIVE DUE

One of America’s finest contemporary authors of fiction and nonfiction

On Sunday, March 29th, 2009
In New York City
(venue to be announced by February 1st, 2009)

Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes, and other special guests will read excerpts from her award-winning and bestselling fiction, participate in a discussion with the audience of her extraordinary career and life as a writer. A reception will follow the performances.

Please make a contribution today: $25 or more will secure you a seat in the audience and an Up South International Book Festival t-shirt or tote bag. Go to www.upsouth.org and write bluemedia@aol.com for more information.

Please send checks or money orders payable to:

Up South, Inc.
310 Convent Avenue, Suite 2A,
New York, NY 10031.

Your contribution allows us to present this and other extraordinary writers, artists, thinkers—especially book authors.

Up South, Inc. is the producer of the annual Up South International Book Festival, held in New York City in the Fall.

We are a nonprofit organization, 501 (c) 3, accepting tax deductible contributions.