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Nailah Jumoke
Nailah Jumoke (Yarbrough), a native of Louisville, Kentucky was
the founder, proprietor and visionary of The Java House Café
and the Harriet Tubman Cultural Center. Recognized as a...view moreNailah Jumoke (Yarbrough), a native of Louisville, Kentucky was
the founder, proprietor and visionary of The Java House Café
and the Harriet Tubman Cultural Center. Recognized as a forum for
racial and social healing through the art of the Spoken Word and
various other community art forms, The Java House and Tubman
Center hosted distinguished visitors and performers that included
Bahamian Diet Guru and Comedian Dick Gregory, Comedian June
Boykins aka "Just June," and Author/Poet Jessica Care Moore.
During its five years of operation, The Java House emerged as the
gathering place for local and regional artists.
Listed as "One of the Most Notable African Americans in the
state of Kentucky," in 1999, at the age of 50, Jumoke-Yarbrough
was the first African American to run for governor in the state of
Kentucky. In 2000 Jumoke received the Louisville Historical League's Preservation Award for the Renovation of the Irvin House
in Portland, Kentucky, which became the home of the Harriet
Tubman Cultural Center and the new home for The Java House Café.
She was also acknowledged in an edition of "Who's Who" in
Business. Jumoke was known as a poet, community activist,
Kentucky/Indiana Girl Scouts volunteer, and a youth advocate. She
also counseled and mentored "at risk" youth in the public-school
system.
Jumoke, who has been a seer of ghosts since childhood, is a
staunch believer in life after death, psychic forces, ancestral
reverence, and the importance of dreams... all of which ultimately led
her to the penning of Abebi, "We called for her and she came to us."
It is based on a true story that spans a five-year period of Jumoke's
life in which she performed African rituals while enduring
tremendous sacrifices to "heed the call" in helping to free the trapped
souls in a real-life, former plantation.view less