King and the Queen

by Deesha Dyer

tribute

The year was 1957. Civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. and revolutionary poet Sonia Sanchez met face-to-face. They took on the world, uniting for change in a society that refused to see them and other blacks as equals. Even after King's assassination in 1968, Sanchez continued her fight, incorporating her own experiences into the struggle, writing countless books and plays that chronicled not only the barriers between races but also the tension between genders and economic classes.

The day after King would have turned 76, Sanchez, now an English professor at Temple University, joins musicians Orrin Evans and friends, local soul diva Jaguar Wright and saxophonist Gary Bartz, to reflect and pay tribute to the fallen humanitarian. Oldheads are familiar with Sanchez and her work, but younger generations were exposed to her influential words in 2000 when she was featured on a CD tribute to hip-hop idol Tupac Shakur. With Full Moon of Sonia (VIA International Artists), Sanchez's first album in 25 years, the poet continues to encourage people to stand up. From the introductory track, "Catch the Fire (for Bill Cosby)," her first lines are piercing: "What to say to you now in the soft afternoon air / As you hold us all in a single death / I say where is your fire / You got to pass it on from you to me / From me to her / From her to him." In "Poem to Some Women / Leak in This Old Building," she writes about a drug addict who abandons her son at a crack house for a week as collateral for a hit.

Decades after she came onto the scene, Sanchez lives up to her reputation as a fierce woman who says what's on her mind.

Sonia Sanchez, with Orrin Evans and Jaguar Wright, Sun., Jan.16, 7 and 9 p.m., $20, Zanzibar Blue, 200 S. Broad St., 215-732-4500, www.zanzibarblue.com.