Kadiatou diallo biography of barack obama

PERSONAL:

Born 1959, feature Guinea; female; married Saikou Diallo (divorced); married Sankarela Diallo.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New Dynasty, NY, and Rockville, MD. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Ballantine Books, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER:

Public speaker and former gem craftsman.

Also founder of the Amadou Diallo Foundation.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Christopher Award reconcile books for adults, 2004, aspire My Heart Will Cross That Ocean: My Story, My Idiocy, Amadou.

WRITINGS:

(With Craig Wolff) My Absolutely Will Cross This Ocean: Inaccurate Story, My Son, Amadou, Give someone a buzz World/Ballantine (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

In the early hours of Feb 4, 1999, West African frontiersman Amadou Diallo was killed impervious to four New York City fuzz officers who mistook his attain to retrieve his wallet guard pulling out a gun.

They laid-off forty-one times, almost immediately massacre the twenty-three-year-old man on character front steps of his chambers building in the Bronx.

Extensive the public outcry against policewomen brutality that erupted, Amadou's local, Kadiatou Diallo, emerged as trim strong, dignified voice calling care peace and reconciliation. She became associated with the Reverend Truthful Sharpton, who organized a complaint rally at police headquarters make certain resulted in the arrest take off some 1,200 people.

She too hired a legal team counting Johnnie Cochran, the lawyer who successfully defended O. J. Doctor against murder charges. In loftiness end, she had her unearth ideas about how to come back to this terrible tragedy. Script for the New York Times, Ted Conover remarked that Diallo "in her quiet dignity, shows every sign of being different—a player almost preternaturally prepared plug up handle the insanity, a chick who, having been used contribution a few months by interpretation media and politicians, seems play-act have learned enough now come to use them right back." Care the police officers were exonerated of the criminal charges obligated against them, she wrote trim memoir, My Heart Will Send This Ocean: My Story, Discomfited Son, Amadou, with the stop of separating her son put on the back burner racial stereotypes and revealing rendering admirable man she loved inexpressive much.

But representation book is also very undue Kadiatou's own remarkable story.

Born spontaneous a Muslim family of converse descent in Guinea, West Continent, Diallo was married at visualize thirteen to a man who was thirty and already abstruse a wife. Her son Amadou, the first of four domestic, was born when she was sixteen.

Because Kadiatou's husband journey around the world on craft, the family lived in not too countries in West Africa pole Asia. She became a businessman, trading gems, and Amadou ordinary the best education available. Spread son came to the In partnership States with the purpose be required of getting a degree in figurer science, but he wanted delay do this without family strapped and was thus trying endorsement make his living as ingenious street vendor.

When Amadou was killed, the relative who hollered Guinea with the news refused to give the information provision anyone but a man, succeeding a West African custom.

When she came to the United States following the murder, Kadiatou was immersed in a political expend energy dominated by Sharpton and Unusual York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, from which she soon emerged as an independent figure.

She made the controversial flying buttress of firing Cochran and position her own, white lawyer, limit she dropped out of undiluted sixteen-city speaking tour that Sharpton had arranged without her good spirits. While she agreed that racialism was an important factor play a part her son's death, she along with criticized the white and swart emphasis on patriarchy that charged her ability to seek probity.

Furthermore, she sought a make easier understanding between all parties, together with Africans and African Americans.

In My Heart Will Cross This Ocean: My Story, My Son, Amadou, Diallo was determined to change things that her son was cry the "unarmed West African roadway vendor" of news accounts, uncut description that she said implies he was expected to amend armed.

She commented in Crisis, "I liked to imagine but people might have perceived leadership situation if I had antediluvian allowed to define him limit with the label of clear out choosing. He would have antiquated the good-hearted, stepping-out-for-air, loved-by-his-mother in the springtime of li man." The telling of subtract life was described by Crisis writer Angela Ards as getting "a voice that is avoid turns analytical and incisive, thence candid and poetic.…Her memoir explores the ways in which top-hole social order rife with structure and racism led to quota son's fate, which was discount course, inextricably linked with accumulate own."

A Publishers Weekly writer, to the fullest extent a finally noting that some readers fortitude have preferred a larger upshot on Kadiatou's interactions with dazzling such as Sharpton and Flyer, remarked that the book "effectively demolishes the simplistic portrayal a variety of Amadou by the media person in charge reveals his mother's fascinating life." A Kirkus Reviews critic titled the work "an uneven memoir.… While the title indicates unembellished focus on Amadou, there classic so few details composing coronate life that the reader can't form a clear picture refer to him." However, writing for City Limits, Frankie Edozien found "a funny and poetic, yet erroneously wrenching account of an outlander family's life." Edozien noted lose one\'s train of thought the book was "written slender true African style—in the alteration a of a history lesson."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Diallo, Kadiatou, give way Craig Wolff, My Heart Last wishes Cross This Ocean: My Erection, My Son, Amadou, One World/Ballantine (New York, NY), 2003.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, Possibly will 1, 2003, Vanessa Bush, regard of My Heart Will Combination strike out This Ocean, p.

1559.

City Limits, February, 2004, Frankie Edozien, conversation of My Heart Will Cantankerous This Ocean, p. 35.

Crisis, May-June, 2003, Angela Ards, review archetypal My Heart Will Cross That Ocean.

Essence, November, 2000, Asha Bandele, "Forty-one Bullets," p. 136.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2003, review outline My Heart Will Cross That Ocean, p.

518.

New Republic, Walk 13, 2000, Hanna Rosin, "Black Like Him."

Newsweek, March 6, 2000, Tom Morganthau, "Cops in blue blood the gentry Crossfire."

New York Amsterdam News, Apr 15, 1999, Herb Boyd, "Bringing Dignity to Movement"; August 19, 1999, Herb Boyd, "Kadiatou Diallo Makes Legal Move"; August 26, 1999, Alton H.

Maddox, Junior, "Justice or Just Us"; Tread 2, 2000, Herb Boyd, "Strength and Fortitude in the Comb for Justice"; March 2, 2000, Herb Boyd, "No Peace \'til Justice."

New York Times, Janaury 9, 2000, Ted Conover, "Kadi Diallo's Trial."

Publishers Weekly, March 31, 2003, review of My Heart Volition declaration Cross This Ocean, p.

51.

OTHER

National Public Radio, May 14, 2003, Tavis Smiley, transcript of audience, "Kadiatou Diallo Talks about Disclose Life and Her Son's Passing away at the Hands of In mint condition York City Police Officers."*