Mandingo Osceola Tshaka: Fearless Fighter for Justice

By M. B. English

In the early 1980's, on one of his clandestine visits to the former fleshpots of 42nd
Street in New York City's Times Square, Mandingo Osceola Tshaka had an epiphany and quit cold turkey a lifestyle he reveled in for more than 40 years.
He was responding to a supernatural cautioning voice to remove a roadblock that could cripple his tireless crusade for justice as he confronted government and private agencies and racism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493127207

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by James W. Garner and M. B. English.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013920341

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4931-2719-1

                Softcover        978-1-4931-2718-4

                eBook             978-1-4931-2720-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Book and Cover Design: Glenwood Lawrence

Photo Credits:

M. B. English

John Tandana

Mandingo Osceola Tshaka

Rev. date: 03/20/2015

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1: Early Childhood

Chapter 2: Tshaka’s Family

Chapter 3: Tshaka’s Neighborhood

Chapter 4: School-Dazed And Racial Identity

Chapter 5: My Happy Times

Chapter 6: Love For Horses

Chapter 7: Tshaka’s Activism

Chapter 8: Menace Of Community Board 11

Chapter 9: Cemetery Struggles

Chapter 10: Tshaka And The 111Th Precinct Police

Chapter 11: Dirt Track To Paved Roads

Chapter 12: His Brush With The Nation Of Islam

Chapter 13: Bald

Chapter 14: Living In Harlem

Chapter 15: Singing Tshaka

Chapter 16: Tshaka On Broadway

Chapter 17: Tshaka And Work

Chapter 18: The House Of Flowers—Tshaka’s Home

Chapter 19: Tshaka’s (Boodyoire) Boudoire

Chapter 20: Close Calls (Near Misses)

Chapter 21: His Favorite Place

Chapter 22: Tshaka’s Clothing

Chapter 23: Tshaka And God

Chapter 24: Tshaka And His Church

Chapter 25: Tshaka’s Pets (His Dogs And Cats)

Chapter 26: Tshaka’s Humor

Chapter 27: Recognizing The Debt

Chapter 28: Tshaka As Native American

Chapter 29: Tshaka’s Letters To Newspaper Editors On Racism

Chapter 30: What Others Say Of Him

Chapter 31: Honors For Tshaka

Chapter 32: Tshaka’s Self Image And Attitude Regarding Racism

Chapter 33: Arthur And Rhitis And Hot Flashes

Chapter 34: Reflections

Chapter 35: His Funeral Plans

Introduction

"But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise . . . and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty."—First Corinthians Chapter 1:27.

The telephone rang in the home of Mandingo Osceola Tshaka. After a few rings a recording came on. You have reached the Advocate. Bayside’s one of a kind…

The voice was a deep, smooth, cultured baritone.

On what was a sunny summer morning, a caller had arranged to meet Tshaka at his two-story home in a section of Bayside in northern Queens that he dubbed, The Flowers. The residents are a mix of African-Americans, Caucasians, Chinese-Americans, Korean-Americans and some East Indian immigrants.

For nearly a year Tshaka had been reviewing for the caller highlights of his colorful, multi-faceted life including appearances in Broadway shows, as a singer with a version of the Ink Spots and his flagship role as a dedicated community advocate.

He recounted how riding a bicycle, carrying only a big stick or ax handle, and with his dogs trotting beside him, he faced down gun-toting drug dealers who plagued his neighborhood.

He took on police, the local Community Board, other government agencies and political leaders on a variety of community issues.

All this while carrying on an active gay lifestyle for many years.

On this spring morning the caller waited for Tshaka to come home for another session of their discussions.

She left her car and stepped onto the sidewalk to stroll through Tshaka’s garden, which extended from the left side of the house to his backyard. In the summer when flowers and flowering plants bloom, the home is a delight for the eyes. The garden is just one of many beautiful things in Tshaka’s environment.

The caller walked up a short set of steps flanked by ornate silver railings and potted pink anemones. She pushed a button, setting off a set of large chimes with Big Ben-like tones that brought Tshaka to the door.

He walked slowly, his knees painful from arthritis. Over his caramel-colored, six-foot, 200-pound frame he wore a Grand Bubba selected from his collection of voluminous African robes that give him a stately, regal appearance. This one was white with gold embroidery and was topped off with a matching West African kufi hat.

Tshaka wore the robe to a tree planting ceremony at a playground near his home. He had pressed for renovation of the playground, and a local elected official who allocated $1.3 million for the project, other elected officials, residents, and Community Board 11 organized the tree-planting event to honor him for his community advocacy.

Tshaka held the front door open to let in the caller.

Good afternoon Princess, she greeted him cheerily. Tshaka laughed a full-throated, happy laugh, acknowledging the visitor’s subtle reference to a lifestyle he forsook in answer to a higher calling.

He led her through a small vestibule where circular stained-glass panels in a window glinted in the sunlight beside a decorative empty metal birdcage that once housed a canary.

Stepping into the living room, the caller smiled at a sign that caught her eye. On the door, in bold red lettering it read: Damn, I’m Good. It was all in good fun, Tshaka not being one to flaunt his accomplishments.

An eclectic collection of furnishings including some antiques, is in the room. Carved, hardwood chairs; a cabinet displaying crystal clocks and other collectibles; antique mirrors, and on a large dining table covered with magazines and mail several Tiffany-style lamps. Tshaka dimmed the lights in the room and switched on the lamps showing how they glow in the darkness like precious stones.

Two large globes luminous with mother-of-pearl outlining the continents and countries of the world rest on stands placed on thick Oriental rugs covering the floor. Old-world glass chandeliers and several clocks—the time frozen at different times of the day—are part of the décor.

On the walls are newspaper clippings of Tshaka’s exploits including one with him facing the regalia-bedecked chief of the Mattinicock tribe to which Tshaka claims linkage.

The clipping and hundreds more in bulging bound volumes record Tshaka’s numerous crusading activities that have been reported in Newsday, the New York Times, The Daily News, and The Tribune and other community newspapers.

Tshaka, who in his prime was a good-looking and imposing figure, was equally attractive to women and men but had a penchant for the latter.

He became famous to his supporters (infamous to his detractors) for doggedly championing causes that others feared to tackle.

Tshaka boldly took to task powerful car dealerships in his neighborhood for flouting zoning laws, in one instance, for parking cars on a sidewalk forcing pedestrians to walk in the street; in another for operating an auto body shop in an area zoned residential.

For these and other social ills that affected his community Tshaka held accountable the police, politicians and government agencies he felt were derelict in their duties.

He would tell them so to their face, most often in courteous, flawless English with the cultured intonation of his trained baritone. But on occasion his speech could swiftly degenerate into forceful, withering expletives.

Displaying a determination to see an issue through to the end despite personal inconvenience, Tshaka once sat through a hearing held by the former Board of Estimate that began at noon and continued until near midnight. He believed the item he was to address was scheduled last on the agenda on purpose to dissuade him from speaking.

For years Tshaka fought relentlessly until he succeeded in having an ancient burial ground in Flushing, about four miles from his neighborhood, restored. He overcame resistance of residents living nearby who objected to having the city renovate the 19th century pauper’s graveyard containing the remains of hundreds of formerly enslaved Africans, Native Americans and some Caucasians.

Neighbors of the cemetery, who were mostly whites, incurred Tshaka’s wrath if he found them ignoring posted signs and allowing their dogs to use the landscaped burial ground as a toilet.

After years of squabbling over funding, city fathers yielded to Tshaka’s tireless calls to have dirt roads in his neighborhood paved and curbs and sidewalks installed to bring the once rural community into the 20th century.

In recent years Tshaka, a staunch advocate for the African-American community, accomplished a major goal. Working with Democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman, he called attention to the fact that enslaved Africans played a major role in the building of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

One result of his crusading for the enslaved laborers was the placement of memorial plaques in Emancipation Hall in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. The plaques recognize the enslaved Africans’ contribution.

Tshaka’s mellifluous baritone that can ride a crescendo soaring into falsetto, thrill audiences in churches, at weddings and other social events. It gained him entree into several renowned Broadway musicals as a performer in minor roles.

He would audition for the chorus but I was not chorus material, he said. I didn’t blend in; I stood out. Many times I wasn’t hired because of it.

Once Tshaka told the director of the Broadway show, Desert Song, that his appearance was too powerful for him to take on what he considered a demeaning role.

The director required that he kneel down before a white actor portraying a liberator of Arabs. Tshaka would have none of it, arguing that I would never get on my knees before any white man on a stage, and besides, the way I look, if anyone should be getting on their knees it should be him [the other actor].

Tshaka likes to recall the time during the Richard Nixon Administration when he and other cast members of the Broadway show Desert Song met the former Shah and Empress of Iran after the show at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s Vice-President, was there. I met all of the crooks, Tshaka quipped.

His striking good looks, toned physique and commanding presence brought opportunities to pose for artists and to escort models at church-sponsored fashion shows.

A gay lifestyle—which he quit cold-turkey at the age of 50 after having an epiphany in Times Square—began during his elementary school years. Tshaka, by his own account, wasn’t a good student, academically. He never graduated, but he was popular with students who appreciated his singing and those who shared his sexual proclivity.

In the heyday of his backdoor pleasures, Tshaka would try to bring men into his grandmother’s house for clandestine night time shenanigans.

Looking back on his past, Tshaka isn’t shy about recounting anecdotes from that aspect of his life. He remarks matter-of-factly about being sneaked into a house by a man whose wife and children were asleep.

I was just singing my song, he says with a laugh. I be decent now. I’m emeritus.

But during his years as an elegant specimen of manhood Tshaka turned heads and elicited many compliments from strangers.

Eighty one years old at the time of this writing—[he says 82 counting his prenatal 9 months]—fighting prostate cancer and with his mobility slowed by arthritic knees, Tshaka no longer sports the chiseled features and firm musculature of his youth, but he is often told that he looks much younger than his years, about 60, some guess, and he remains appealing to both sexes.

He has pretty much retired from active community advocacy but people with civic problems still seek his help. And he continues to fight injustice—if with a somewhat reduced fortitude.

His most recent battle: the Clearview Expressway service road runs too close to some homes in his mixed community, and there are no sound-barriers, as exist in the areas where the roadway runs alongside the white communities.

He long ago gave up his bicycle, and since his knees became his Achilles heel, he gets around on top-of-the-line electric scooters and a power chair.

Tshaka has grandiose plans for what he calls his ‘final curtain.’ His granite headstone already stands in a plot at the Flushing Cemetery.

After more than a year of interviews on Saturdays, the caller undertook the formidable task of writing down the various aspects of Tshaka’s life based on his recollections.

Tshaka’s cousin, Dayton, a Manhattan pianist, then 82 [now deceased], commented on the prospective project, indicating that he considered Tshaka larger than life.

Jokingly Dayton remarked, "You have your hands full. I wouldn’t want to be where you are. Call out the Fire Department! The police! And everybody else!"

Image23878.JPGImage23885.JPG

Collage of scenes from Tshaka’s life.

Chapter One

EARLY CHILDHOOD

Tshaka was born James Wayman Garner, son of Emily-Mae and James Hector Garner who he described as an emotionally distant father. Tshaka rarely saw his dad although his father lived only a block away from the house in Bayside that Tshaka’s maternal grandmother owned and where Tshaka has lived for most of his life.

"I was born on the 12th of May, 1931 at the height of the Depression. My mother had tuberculosis. I had an older sister, Grace (his only sibling on his mother’s side). She was about two when I was born. She was a pretty brown baby. She died of tuberculosis on the 25th of May, 1931, and was interred in Flushing Cemetery.

With my mother having tuberculosis she could have aborted me, but she didn’t. It was a hard time to bring a baby into the world. She was sick, and she had a baby that was sick. So I have to thank her for that.

Tshaka’s mother lived a turbulent, bisexual existence and paid him little attention. She died when Tshaka was a grown man. She was in her early 50s. He was raised by his maternal grandmother, Lillian Selby, a stern, hard-working woman who molded his childhood years. He called her ‘Nana.’ Others called her ‘Mom Selby.’

She [Selby] became my guardian while my mother was at Saranac or doing her thing. My father didn’t know shit.

Memories of his mother a beautiful woman—who lived in his grandmother’s house on and off—evoke ambivalent emotions in Tshaka. He recalled with some anger being sick with Scarlet Fever as a