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Earlier this year, Necilia Jones’ youngest son, DeAngelo Kwabena Jones-Sharpe, wrapped up his studies at the independent African-centered school NationHouse with a graduation ceremony where he and another classmate wowed teachers, parents and community members with essays they wrote about the youths’ role in “nationbuilding.”
Decades ago, late NationHouse co-founder Nana Kwame Agyei Akoto defined nationbuilding (intentionally one word) as the liberation of African people through the dedication of resources and development of customs, values and institutions that explain their history, protect them in the present day, and help them shape a national identity outside of a hegemonic European paradigm.
Jones said those values compelled her to enroll her daughter, Destiny Nyala Sharpe, in NationHouse at the turn of the century.
“I was always in Sankofa Books, Blue Nile and supporting other African-centered organizations,” Jones said. “Because my children are Jamaican, they grew up with Rastafari. They know who they are and what they should be doing. You have that reinforcement at NationHouse with the intergenerational transmission and then your own self-determination and willpower.”
Destiny Nyala spent her preschool, elementary and middle school years at NationHouse before graduating in 2011, paving the way for her younger siblings DeAngelo Kwabena and Dennis Kwame Jones-Sharpe.
Dennis Kwame graduated from NationHouse in 2020, at the height of the pandemic. Like their older sister, he and DeAngelo Kwabena embraced their West African middle names, wore African garb, spoke Kiswahili, and immersed themselves in daily customs and curricula that centered on figures, culture, and history of the African Diaspora.
Jones said such an experience further anchored her in D.C.’s African-centered community as she continued to attend events, design jewelry, adopt ancient African customs, and form bonds with like-minded parents.
“I just felt even more empowered as a parent,” Jones told The Informer. “Seeing all the beautiful children wearing color in an educational space. It was everything I had ever hoped for.”
When DeAngelo Kwabena matriculates to a Prince George’s County public high school next year, he will be following in the footsteps of his older siblings, both of whom went on to graduate high school with flying colors.
Dennis Kwame will start his freshman year this fall at Morgan State University in Baltimore while his older sister continues her graduate studies at American University in Northwest. Those outcomes, their mother said, serve as a testament to NationHouse’s significance throughout the generations.
“Our children do have these distractions, but there are institutions that reinforce what they want for you,” Jones said. “That’s what I wanted — reinforcement. I’m just happy that they have that foundation. My children want to come back to serve the school even after they’ve graduated.”
Looking Back: NationHouse Celebrates 50 Years
On June 8, Jones’ family counted among those who attended a gala in celebration of NationHouse’s 50th anniversary.
The gala, which took place at the Silver Spring Civic Center at Veterans Plaza in Silver Spring, Maryland, attracted four generations of NationHouse students, parents, teachers, alumni and other community members who traveled from different parts of the country to attend the festivities. It also culminated an academic year that included NationHouse’s annual Kwanzaa program, the 35th annual Ankobea Sankofa Conference, and NationHouse’s participation in a chess tournament that commemorated the Bolling v. Sharpe Supreme Court decision.
The program opened with pouring of libation and a singing of the Black National Anthem by NationHouse students and Akua Allrich, a soul singer who’s also a NationHouse instructor-administrator and 1996 high school graduate. Yaa-Asantewa Akoto, NationHouse’s second-generation senior director and 1984 middle school graduate, later acknowledged NationHouse co-founders Akua Akoto, Kehembe Eichelberger, and Akili Ron Anderson.
Other special guests that evening included Roots Public Charter School founder Dr. Bernida L. Thompson and principal Rashiki Kuykendall, and Dr. El Senzengakulu Zulu, founder of Ujamaa Shule, each of whom listened intently as Nkechi Taifa, an attorney, reparations advocate and former NationHouse teacher, gave the keynote address.
Allrich, accompanied by her band, The Tribe, later performed a few musical numbers of her own as guests enjoyed a Diasporic African cuisine catered by Down to Mama’s Backyard BBQ, based in Clinton, Maryland.
Meanwhile, her husband, DJ Baba Asukile Allrich, kept the sounds of the African Diaspora emanating through the space as a montage of throwback photos and videos played on a projector.
For Anderson, as a co-founder, the occasion evoked thoughts of a legacy that must be preserved and built upon by future generations.
“You can’t guarantee what’s going to happen in life but you want to at least continue to make a contribution with history,” said Anderson, a visual artist whose catalog includes sculptures, paintings and theater sets.
Anderson, a Cardozo High School alumnus and Duke Ellington School of the Arts (DESA)’ founding visual arts department chair, channeled his passion for set design as a member of NATION: Afrikan Liberation Arts Ensemble, a group he formed with Nana Kwame Agyei Akoto and Eichelberger. He also served as an instructor at NationHouse before becoming a full-time faculty member in Howard University’s (HU) Department of Art.
As someone who saw NationHouse at its inception, Anderson said he valued collaborating with, and gleaning wisdom from, other African-centered independent schools that had membership in the Council of Independent Black Institutions, the entity under which Pan-African schools in the U.S. have unified since the 1970s.
“People see what worked, what didn’t work and what were the lessons learned so you don’t keep reinventing the wheel,” Anderson said. “You don’t want to expose everything, but [you do want] to pass on the knowledge of institution building so [future generations] can start at a higher place with institutions and in our personal development.”
A Family-Centered Institution Born out of a Movement
Long before NationHouse’s 1974 inception, Agyei and Akua Akoto, along with Kehembe Eichelberger and Akili Ron Anderson bonded around their love for African people and a desire to build institutions that ensured Pan-African self-determination.
Throughout the 1960s, this quartet developed academically, socially, culturally and politically at HU, based in Northwest. During a period of political turmoil, they spent time with Pan-African organizer Kwame Ture, psychiatrist Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, poet-folklorist-literary critic Sterling Brown and other notable scholars.
They also counted among those who incited calls for Black arts and African studies programs at HU and hosted study circles.
During those study circles, the Akotos, Eichelberger and Anderson often explored the question of an institution they could establish to help African people. As Eichelberger told The Informer, the group settled on creating an independent African-centered school after Yaa-Asantewa Akoto, the Akotos’ first child, brought home an Easter-themed homework assignment.
“We just didn’t want to see bunny rabbits,” said Eichelberger, currently an associate professor of classical and jazz voice in HU’s College of Fine Arts. “We wanted to teach who we were and celebrate the freedom fighters. We wanted to maintain family, no matter what.”
After negotiating a lease in 1972, the Akotos, Eichelberger and Anderson started working on 503 Park Road NW, an abandoned, semi-attached row house. After several months of renovations, NationHouse Watoto School opened on July 1, 1974 with eight students — including Yaa-Asantewa Akoto.
From NationHouse’s founding until 1986, Eichelberger played a prominent role as an administrator and cook. That’s when she said she saw a tsunami of support, locally and nationally, for the independent African-centered school. Supporters, she noted, included a District family court judge who referred students to NationHouse, along with Ed Love, scholar-activist Dr. Acklyn Lynch, Dr. Ronald W. Walters and Dr. Cornel West who made at least one financial contribution.
By 1982, when the founders acquired, renovated and fully furnished another property, 770 Park Road NW, the student body grew to 60. In the early 1990s, NationHouse had more than 180 students between two buildings. All the while, Akoto had his sights set on further expanding the web of protection around children and families. In 1989, he, along with Eichelberger and a cadre of men and women in the community, created the Ankobea Abusua Society, an African-centered rites-of-passage program, in response to intracommunity violence that claimed the lives of NationHouse alumni.
Eichelberger said that Akoto navigated his responsibilities as NationHouse’s executive director with a love for family and community. “The generations of families, the commitment of teachers, the idea and the spirit,” Eichelberger said. “And Baba Agyei being the headmaster. Punching that nail in the ground. He was our spiritual duct tape and nail to keep things together.”
Obi Holly, NationHouse’s first male middle school graduate, credits NationHouse with boosting his reading fluency and inspiring the self-confidence that he lost when he had to repeat a grade at Janney Elementary School in the 1970s.
“The genius was that they kept me in my proper grade for my age — and that changed my life,” said Holly, a rapper and award-winning television producer. “They saw me struggling in math and reading but wanted me ato… be around the proper social group while taking a class here and there. I was placed in an area that made sense for me and got me on… grade [level] by high school.”
Upon his graduation in 1984 alongside Yaa-Asantewa Akoto and Thandiwe Pharoah, Holly matriculated to Banneker Academic High School. As he recounted, he handled the rigorous instruction with grace while making friends with members of DESA’s student body.
The balance between academics and arts, Holly said, laid the groundwork for stints at various places, including BET, where he produced “Rap City: Tha Bassment” with Joe Clair and Big Tigger.
These days, Holly lives in Los Angeles with his wife/business partner and four daughters who are known as the Holly Girlz. As he gears up for the release of an album and book, Holly said he keeps the memories of NationHouse at the forefront of his mind.
“They pushed the academics and laid the foundation for my reading and cultural understanding,” Holly said. “It’s not that young people are stupid. They’re not given the proper tools, or people don’t understand where they are. NationHouse provided that foundation. It was very academic and serious [with] all the social and creative elements.”
New Location, Same Mission
In 2012, NationHouse moved to its current location in Northeast in response to gentrification that pushed native Washingtonians and legacy institutions out of the Petworth and Shaw communities. There, the program continued to operate with Nana Kwame Agyei Akoto gradually passing on his responsibilities to Yaa-Asantewa Akoto, who would eventually become senior director in her own right.
In the years leading up to Akoto’s 2019 death, Yaa-Asantewa Akoto, along with her sister Allrich and sister-in-law Mavhu Akoto, emerged as the new generation of school administrators.
Allrich taught the pre-schoolers and led the schoolwide music program while Mavhu Akoto taught African and English literature and Shona, an indigenous language spoken in Zimbabwe.
“It was gradual where we gravitated toward what we did and adopted,” Yaa-Asantewa Akoto said. “Baba Agyei released activities and taught us how to teach social studies. He was still in class until the day he passed. He was standing there, watching us. And that’s when we knew he had passed the torch.”
Colleagues often refer to Yaa-Asantewa Akoto, the oldest of Nana Kwame Aygei and Akua Akoto’s children, as “The First NationHouse Student.” Throughout the early 1970s, as her parents, Eichelberger and Anderson poured their all into building NationHouse, she attended Ujamaa Shule for one year and prepared for her transition to an institution of her family’s making.
In 1984, Yaa-Asantewa Akoto and her two classmates wrapped up their middle school years at NationHouse. She then matriculated to Banneker Academic High School, and later Morgan State University and HU’s School of Law.
By 1995, Akoto started teaching at NationHouse, becoming a full-time instructor within a matter of three years. She told The Informer that the public speaking opportunities she received as one of NationHouse’s first graduates primed her for that role.
“We wanted to go to public school. Then when I got there, I realized there were a lot of people who thought [my experience at NationHouse] was interesting,” Akoto said. “Then I got asked to come back to speak at Kwanzaa panels. It became apparent in college, seeing the difference between myself and others who enjoyed hearing my unique experience at NationHouse.”
For Kamau Grimes, such experiences make NationHouse essential for children of African descent living in the D.C. metropolitan area.
“It’s like you’re walking into a parallel universe,” said Grimes, a social studies and physical education teacher entering his eighth year as a NationHouse staff member. “You could tell that you walked into something that had been fully operational for decades with its own philosophy that’s different from the general philosophy of America, or even D.C.”
In 2017, Grimes, a Pan-African historian, started working at NationHouse in Northeast at the behest of colleagues who forwarded his name to administrators.
During the first two years of his tenure, Grimes tackled administrative tasks and shadowed Nana Kwame Agyei Akoto during his social studies classes. After Akoto’s transition, Grimes took on the social studies instruction, with some inspiration from the curriculum that the noble ancestor designed.
This past academic year, Grimes discussed current events with students and guided them through the labeling of maps and identification of flags. As he explained to The Informer, students also learned about the decline of West African empires and the African Holocaust (Middle Passage) in greater context.
Instruction included: Mali and Songhay empires, resistance to enslavement, and an exploration of how Europeans capitalized on schisms between Africans on the continent.
“The experience [with Nana Agyei] let me know … how to teach in the NationHouse way,” Grimes said. “The teacher is the curriculum because the students follow what you do. That’s one of the first things they told me at NationHouse. It’s more than information. You have to be enveloped in the culture.”
Remembering Nana Kwame Agyei Akoto
When Nana Kwame Agyei Akoto, known as Baba Agyei, transitioned on December 4, 2019, he left behind 10 children, dozens of grandchildren, and legions of NationHouse students, teachers, staff and alumni who’ve come to respect, admire, and even love the man who made history and culture come alive in his lectures.
Akua Akoto said she and her late husband saw firsthand the power of family and community development while growing up in Mississippi, where Baba Agyei’s great-grandmother ran a one-room school building for children in Columbus.
“Our school is a schoolhouse that we came up with when we were young,” Akoto said as she explained the emphasis on collaboration with families. “Parents were involved in school so we expect that children will continue to educate their own children and other children.”
Upon his move to southern Florida in the early 1960s, Nana Agyei excelled in his studies, becoming 1965 class president at Arthur and Polly Mays High School in Dade County, Florida.
That’s where he also met, and entered a courtship, with Akua Akoto.
In 1967, Akoto transferred to HU from Albertus Magnus College for Women in New Haven, Connecticut to join her future husband, who was already working toward a bachelor’s degree in saxophone and music education. Three years later, in 1970, they got married, but not before Akua Akoto graduated from HU with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry.
By the time that NationHouse’s doors opened, the Akotos became even more credentialed, with Nana Kwame Agyei Akoto acquiring a master’s degree in early childhood education and Akua Akoto graduating from HU’s School of Medicine.
That knowledge, Akoto said, would be used in service of NationHouse and its many students. The emphasis on nationbuilding, Akoto said, translates to Baba Agyei’s children.
“We had planned for this institution to educate our children and their peers and parents of like minds,” Akoto said. “It would survive us and our children. With the situation of Africans all over the world, it’s important that intergenerational transmission occurs for actual African liberation.”
Yao Enun, a retired D.C. Public Schools teacher and founding member of Ankobea Abusua Society, said he could testify to Baba Agyei’s impact on generations of Black children and their families.
“When you talked to Baba Agyei enough, you understood that what he was doing wasn’t just for his kids or students at NationHouse,” said Enun, 67. “He wanted to reach out to a larger audience to make folks understand that African liberation is what we seek as a people.”
Enun recounted seeing Nana Agyei’s ability to do just that through music. In 1970, he met him while a student at DESA, where Nana Agyei worked as a jazz band director and allowed students to participate in NATION: Afrikan Liberation Art Ensemble.
Years later, as a student at HU’s School of Education, Enun made NationHouse the focus of his project about community education institutions. He later worked part-time at NationHouse as a music teacher while traveling with NATION: Afrikan Liberation Art Ensemble.
Even though Enun wouldn’t stay long at NationHouse, he maintained contact with Baba Agyei and other community members, especially during and after the launch of the Ankobea Abusua Society. Reflecting on the two weeks of meetings that took place at 770 Park Road NW in 1989, Enun said he saw a man deeply concerned about the erosion of African families and communities.
“Everyone who came to that meeting or worked with the school had that framework about African liberation,” Enun said. “It was a normal thing for Baba Agyei to organize. He was a real good brother [who was] committed to helping the people. He was trying to get young people to understand that the dominant society isn’t our friend and it isn’t African.”
NationHouse alumna Nia Lacy credits Nana Agyei with positively shaping her worldview with what she called instruction that piqued her interests and affirmed her self-identity.
“Once it’s instilled in you at the age of seven, it’s hard to leave you,” said Lacy, a 20-year-old rising senior at HU. “I was put in [position] to succeed thanks to an elder who was smarter than I could ever imagine. Everything he taught us was through an African-centered lens.”
Lacy started at NationHouse as a preschool student. From the age of three until her 2017 middle school graduation, she participated in a bevy of activities on school grounds and in the community. By the time she matriculated to Banneker Academic High School, Lacy knew about a litany of African historical figures, including the man for whom her high school was named.
She also had under her belt vast experience as a chess and softball player and practitioner of African dance.
Lacy told The Informer that, while at Banneker and HU, she kept her circle of friends small out of regard for the African-centered principles she had come to love and respect at NationHouse. She said those values translated into her participation in a student-led campaign to ensure that Banneker Academic High School received a new state-of-the-art building.
Though she no longer attends NationHouse, Lacy said she carves out time to attend events and create new memories with her fellow NationHouse alumni and those with whom she completed the Ankobea rites-of-passage program.
“When you branch outside of African-centered education and get a glimpse of the public school system… it’s interesting to see that some people… don’t think the same way my peers do with the values we had instilled inside of us,” Lacy said. “There’s a sense of community and family at NationHouse with everyone having your best interests in mind. It stuck with me and drove me to be confident in my studies and the things I could accomplish.”
Great story on a great institution!