[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 48 (Thursday, March 19, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E731-E732]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     A TRIBUTE TO ANGELI R. RASBURY

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS-

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 19, 2009

  Mr. TOWNS. Madam Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Angeli R. 
Rasbury.
  Angeli Rasbury is a writer, educator, artist, attorney and founder of 
Griot Reading Programs, which is dedicated to promoting literacy among 
youth of African descent and Black literature. She teaches poetry and 
creative writing to children as young as five-years-old and teens at 
the Brooklyn-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation and New York Writers 
Coalition. She has facilitated book clubs for middle school and high 
school students and elders. The reading scores of every middle school 
student with whom she worked improved. Her writing students have 
received awards from teachers and city council members. She has been an 
instructor of creative nonfiction and memoir at the Frederick Douglass 
Creative Arts Center in New York City and has taught creative writing, 
college composition and African American literature at Molloy College 
in Long Island. Ms. Rasbury has worked with girls in a rites of passage 
program and works with girls involved in the juvenile-justice system. 
She has organized readings and book programs for children, including 
programs for the annual Rhymes, Rhythms and Rituals Festival sponsored 
by African Voices, and literary programs for the adults. She has worked 
with elders, collecting oral history for Elders Share the Arts. She has 
been a panelist in the grant review process for artists for the 
Brooklyn Arts Council. Ms. Rasbury is a member of the New Renaissance 
Writers Guild and has been a member of the Richard Wright Project and 
PEN American Center Open Book Committee.
  As the youth services community and partnerships associate at the 
central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, Ms. Rasbury has provided 
family-oriented Kwanza and Martin Luther King Program, Jr. Day programs 
where the focus is the young people in our community. She has provided 
a monthly art program for two years and provided an opportunity for our 
youth to work with award-winning and emerging artists, providing arts 
enrichment for youth and supporting the artists. She has partnered with 
various community organizations to promote literacy and youth and 
community development. A former editor for Black Issues Book Review and 
QBR: The Black Book Review, other magazines, and community newspapers. 
Her essays, book reviews, profiles, features and interviews have been 
published in Essence, American Legacy, Black Enterprise, The Source, 
Vibe, and other magazines and online at womensenews.com, for which she 
is the girls' beat reporter and focuses on detention and incarceration 
topics. She received a PASS Award (the only national recognition of 
print and broadcast journalists, TV news and feature reporters, 
producers, and writers, and those in film and literature who try to 
focus America's attention on our criminal justice system, juvenile 
justice system, and child welfare systems in a thoughtful and 
considerate manner) from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency 
for her article ``Out of Jail, Mothers Struggle to Reclaim Children''. 
Ms. Rasbury's short stories have appeared in Anansi: Fiction of the 
African Diaspora. She has been quoted in the New York Times, Mosaic and 
Brooklyn Rail and co-edited Sacred Fire: The QBR 100 Essential Black 
Books. She was awarded the DorisJean Austin Fellowship for African 
American Fiction Writers by the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center 
and has been a panelist at writing and publishing conferences. She 
performed in Talkin' Brooklyn: A Story Circle Showcase of Elders Share 
the Arts and Diary of a Mad Black Feminist.
  Angeli Rasbury has been keynote speaker for the Yellow Rose Awards 
Program for New York University's College of Arts and Science and the 
Brooklyn Public Library's Friends and Volunteers luncheon. She holds a 
B.S. from Syracuse University and a J.D. from Temple University. She 
practiced criminal defense law as a senior attorney with the Legal Aid 
Society, Criminal Defense Division. She has taught high school students 
various areas of the law and civil rights issues through the Law 
Education and Assistance Program and the New York Civil Rights 
Coalition and was executive director of the Nkitu Center for Education 
and Culture. Her photography has been published and exhibited. In her 
spare time she designs jewelry and loves to travel. She lives in 
Brooklyn, New York. She spends a lot of time with her nieces and 
nephews, family and friends.

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