In Memoriam:

Samori Marksman, program director of WBAI radio in New York and one of the finest journalists of his generation, died in his sleep from a heart attack March 23. He was 51. He is survived by his wife Rita, two daughters, Lindiwe Ona and Zindzi Sonjay, and a son, Kaifa Samori.

      Samori's death followed a tense and exhausting meeting, part of the ongoing struggle to keep Pacifica Radio committed to the principles for which it has existed for 50 years. Over three thousand people turned out for his funeral at Manhattan's Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

      The New York Times, which has made no secret of its support for those who want to make Pacifica a clone of NPR, sent a reporter to join the thousands at the funeral, and then censored all mention of Marksman from its obituary page. Marksman might have smiled at the unintended compliment.

      As Samori's associate and close friend Elombe Brath said at the memorial, "Samori's true impact is best measured by the vast audience he reached over the airwaves to present the truth." He will be most remembered for his programs "Behind the News" and "Worldview." Marksman provided background about areas of the world ignored by the corporate media, raised questions about NATO's real agenda that virtually nobody was asking, and focused listeners' attention on the "New World Order" economic policies that have ruined living standards and provoked or exacerbated conflicts worldwide.

      Well before the bombing of Yugoslavia, Samori analyzed the obvious parallels between the re-balkanization of the Balkans and similar imperialist plans, particularly in Africa, against the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, and elsewhere.

      Samori Marksman was born Stanley Theodore Marksman on October 27, 1947, in the town of Coalshill, St. Vincent, in the Caribbean. He came with his family to the U.S. in 1963, at age 16. An early stint in the U.S. military involved work at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware as a member of a burial detail for young soldiers killed in Indochina, in which Samori had to accompany the bodies home to their families.

      On leaving the military, he studied at New York University, later transferring to Columbia where he received degrees in political science and journalism. He was one of the founders in 1971, along with Brath and with other Caribbean students, of the African Mobilization Committee to promote Pan-Africanism.

      After the attempted overthrow by Portuguese colonialists of President Sekou Touré of Guinea, Samori became involved in political work in defense of that West African country. Guinea had received Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah after his overthrow, and made him Co-President of the nation. As Elombe Brath has pointed out, when Kwame Touré, then known as Stokely Carmichael, came to Guinea with his wife Miriam Makeba, the country became the logical center of the Pan-African movement.

      It was Marksman's work in Guinea and his devotion to the country that caused him to adopt the name of one of its most illustrious historical figures, Almamy Samori Touré, the grandfather of the country's president, who had fought valiantly against French colonialism in the 19th century.

      Samori's international renown grew from his unstinting work with the liberation struggles in South Africa and Namibia, Maurice Bishop's New Jewel Movement in Grenada, the Michael Manley governments in Jamaica, the Puerto Rican independence movement, the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, and especially the Cuban revolution.

      Samori's skills, both as radio journalist and as WBAI program director, involved reminding people of the international connections to local struggles, and reaching across ethnic and national divides. In the last weeks of his life, Marksman was closely involved in the movement protesting the brutal police slaying of Amadou Diallo. His effort not only contributed to a healthier and more experienced political environment in New York, but also helped WBAI. Beginning in 1996 and for three successive years, he engineered fundraising campaigns that each raised the unheard-of sum of $1 million for the radio station.

      We can never replace our comrade, brother, and friend Samori, who worked closely with us throughout this magazine's twenty years, probing the crimes of U.S. clandestine intervention. We will always treasure our work with him.

      As his colleague Rosemari Mealy wrote: "Our journalist brother Samori was...like a warm embrace in the midst of a snowstorm. He now shares the Spirit Winds, sending forth to us who remain here in this place, the energy to ‘Carry it ON.' We will fly, guided by the wisdom and truth that he taught."

-The staff of CovertAction Quarterly