In Loving Memory of Sister Sankofa

We Love You Sister Sankofa

We loved Sister Sankofa dearly and were friends and chosen family together.  

We were also active collaborators.  This looked like the My Grandmother's Hands Study Groups, supporting and expanding the Growing Resilience: Being Trauma Informed Course, attending and supporting her Money Matters Conferences, advocacy, activism, accountability, community conflict support and more all while we worked to dismantle white supremacy in ourselves and with others. 

We are deeply saddened by her too soon passing.  

Her obituary shares all that she was up to, though we know there was much more that could be added.  

This article speaks to her vital role in our community.  

Her Celebration of Life happened on March 29, 2025 and was a combined service with her father Henry who passed away just after Sister Sankofa.   It was a beautiful service full of song, poetry, and connection.  

Watch the memorial service by clicking here.  

Abbi shared a eulogy for Sister Sankofa.  The eulogy begins at 29:00.  A transcript of the eulogy is below.

Farmer Ama follows the eulogy with a captivating and heartfelt poetry reading.  The sharing of food after the service continued to weave the web of her community together.  

​Eulogy for Sister Sankofa

INTRO  Hi, I’m Abbi.  I was a close friend and dear collaborator of Sister Sankofas.  

If you want to…can we take a breath together?  And another.  Wiggle stretch look behind you…

Sister Sankofa was many things to many people here in VT  (friend, collaborator, advocate, visionary, performer, healer, educator, singer, instigator,) she built family here.  

We are still meeting different branches of her network, community, and the people whose lives she touched.  She navigated different worlds.  

She met people where we were at and shared different parts of herself with different people, yet her fierce, kind, energetic spirit would authentically shine through.  We could sing her praises all night.  Being human, there is so much mystery.  Here is an attempt at sharing a part of who she is.

She was up to so so much.  She cared for so many.  And as such, many people contributed to my words today.  Thank you to Kale, Jess, Raph, Amanda, Rae, Chrys, Weaver, Carlton, Denise, Ama and Anna, and of course Sister Sankofa….  These are not just my words…

As a friend, we were the type of friend who was also family, who had each other’s backs, who believed in each other’s ideas, who showed up for the big and small moments with snacks and flowers and a hope for each other’s dreams to come true. In her too soon passing I have had the honor of getting to know her big sister Donnamarie who asked me to share a personal reflection today of Sister Sankofa's life in Vermont.  

SHARED EXPERIENCES

Sister Sankofa and I met through a mutual friend and our shared love of Resmaa Menakem’s book My Grandmother’s Hands and we organized and with others facilitated study groups for this book for 5 years in running.  

My partner Tyler remembers her passion for the study groups with her saying, “Have you taken the study group? No?  Well you have to take it.”  There wasn’t wiggle room, just a clear call to action.  

Sister Sankofa was committed to healing.  The tag line to the book My Grandmother's Hands is Racialized Trauma and the Pathways to Mending Our Bodies and Hearts. She experienced this work as powerful, liberating and supportive.  She felt what was possible. And she wanted to invite everyone she could into this important work.  The Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) group, started as a once a year offering, but when Sister Sankofa began facilitating them, she offered them many times a year.   

She would call me on a Saturday morning and say… “We are going to the farmers market to pass out fliers for the My Grandmother’s hands groups.”  We tabled at events and handed out fliers at many of the Montpelier Gospel Choir’s shows.  We were invited to talk on the radio and a couple summers ago she said “Abbi, you will give a speech on the statehouse lawn at the Race Against Racism event about these groups.”  Perhaps you can hear a theme, Sister Sankofa was committed and wanted you to be too.  Collective change cannot happen alone.  So if you haven’t participated in a facilitated My Grandmother’s Hands group yet, well… you have to.  

Sister Sankofa had many clear calls to action.  And her vision and values mirrored my own.  And I was not alone in feeling enthusiastic to meet her calls to action. 

Once she said, “I am going to organize a firewalk”.  And while I never would have signed up to do this, we organized the event and we were going to walk across hot coals.  The flier read: Commit to Anti-Racism.  Let’s Stomp Out Racism Together.  The event was scheduled for July 26 2023 but two weeks before a flood washed out the road to the location and the firewalk was cancelled.  But as we recovered from the flood and all that was lost, a new firewalk event was already in the works.  Another thing that was lost in the 2023 flood was the opening of the VT Kindness Project’s Resilience Hub and BIPOC Ally Center.  They had a great location, but the flood made it uninhabitable.  She was invested in multi-cultural and cross-race collaboration and she kept her desire for a BIPOC Ally Center alive, and it was on the top of her builtin board in her home of things she hoped to manifest.  

She had a ton of collaborators and was on many different boards. A few recent stirrings were…

She and Rae were organizing around the healing and accountability of ancestral root work, building community together and adventuring in nature together. 

She and Anna had just submitted in January a proposal to the State of Vermont’s Dept. of Tourism and Marketing to bring more BIPOC travelers to VT and more cultural competency to the tourism industry. Sister Sankofa had a plan of designing creative assets featuring herself and BIPOC friends skiing and being the face of VT.  YES!
 
I could go on and on.
Everything in her obituary, and all that was not, there takes real time and heart.
She was so generous with her community and with her friends.
I have no idea how she had time for it all.  She arrived in VT only 8 years ago.  
She was up to so much with so many, and was working on doing less, so that on Sundays, she rested.  

AFFIRMATION  

Sister Sankofa knew the power of affirmations and had a dedicated affirmation practice.  I attended her Money Matter’s conferences.  She began them with a land acknowledgement, that we are here on the unceded territory of the Abenaki, and she began them with singing an affirmation that we were all asked to stand for and to sing with her.   
I am Powerful
I am beautiful
I am loving
I am rising to the top top top 

She was powerful.  

• She made things happen.  Connections that would not have otherwise happened.
  • She wove the web of community stronger.  
  • She knew how to get good folks to do more good work.  She called us in, connected us with each other, and we got to work.
  • She dreamed of a BIPOC community garden and the Paige Wadly Bailey Community garden is alive and well.  
• She worked to Unbody white supremacy culture within herself and she wanted you to too
  • Perfectionism, a sense of Urgency, there being ‘only one right way,’ or as Sister Sankofa would say, ‘only one white way,’ these and other characteristics of white supremacy culture shape interactions, worldview, bodies.  
  • She talked about the way white supremacy culture forces us to minimize who we are and what we need. And she practiced deprogramming white supremacy, unbodying white supremacy, and practices showing up more compassionately.  
• She Boldly and with compassion stood up to racism
• She was a BIPOC Community Advocate
  • She listened, and responded, stood up and called allies in.  She called us in to listen, learn and once you now better, to do better.  
  • she was fiercely dedicated to justice for many individuals.
• Chrys shared that Not only did she steadily hold her vision through precarious times, she also knew what actions to take to bring the dream of a more loving world to fruition step-by-step and day-by-day.  She conspired to help others every day and in so many ways.   She so clearly saw people’s gifts and created opportunities for many to shine, knowing that every voice is needed and true power is that which uplifts us all. 

She was beautiful. 

• She was a captivating actor and singer.  
• Jessica Laporte shared “She was a really proud Black woman and really celebrated her Blackness. She celebrated all Black people she would meet… And that Jess has been deeply impacted by Sister Sankofa’s really strong vision for how personal and community healing are intertwined with equity. 

She was loving.  

• She cared for her fellow human beings so much.  She cared for us so much.  
• As you may know, she also loved animals so very much.  And she respected and trusted young people. 
• She practiced loving her self and her community. 
  • everything she gained, learned, experienced, enjoyed, she wanted to share with others.
    • Including the empowerment of financial literacy and the peacefulness of North Branch Nature Center
    • As she found healing practitioners she could trust, she wanted to share them with her community and organized BIPOC wellness days.
• She was charitable with a side eye for BS.  
• Experiences that she had that could have hardened her heart, instead grew her heart bigger.  
• She wanted to cancel the cancel culture and call each other and show up for each other more
• She would tell white folks, those she was in relationship with and on boards with, yall gotta do your work around racism, in a way that was intended to invite them in, and she would often connect them to opportunities and facilitators who could support the process for the long haul.  
• She welcomed a person who had lost their housing into her own home. She helped people move. If there was a personal needs fire happening, she helped you put it out.  
• Everyone was welcome at her table. 
• She was willing to relate deeply and had genuine interest and care for others, for you, for us.

She was rising to the top 

• and bringing us all along with her.  
  • As we all deserve what is considered the top.
• She was manifesting.  She was on a trajectory.  And as she rose, she was committed to bringing others along with her.  She lifted me up.  Maybe she lifted you up.  
• And when she stumbled, she was honest and her care for relationship and repair was inspiring.
• She offered labor that was recognized like when she was awarded Central Vermont Economic Development Corporations Innovator of the year award, and labor that was unseen by most.  

SO, let's sing her song.  Let us sing it for her, Let us sing it for ourselves.

It will be call in response…

I am powerful
I am beautiful
I am loving
I am rising to the top top top 


I'M GOING TO MISS

I am going to miss my dear friend, her laughter, her wonderful sense of humor, her voice. 
I am going to miss the moments of quiet and safety we felt together.
I am going to miss her collaboration to make good things happen.
I am going to miss her weaving me deeper into connection with all of you.  
Sister Sankofa, the hole created by the loss of you here in my physical realm is epic.  


THANK YOU

• Sister Sankofa, thank you for your deep care and for embodying transformative leadership.
• Sister Sankofa, thank you for your fierceness and your forgiveness
• Sister Sankofa, thank you for your BIG vision, that included me, that included us all. 
• Thank you for showing us that no goal is too big.  
• Sister Sankofa, thank you for your fire, your drive, for asking us to step outside of our comfort zones.
• Thank you for seeing me, for seeing us, for affirming our power and worth, for seeing how my dream connected to yours, and calling us in.  
• Thank you for your clarity on what was going on but never letting that dim your kindness. 
• Thank you Sister Sankofa for reminding us and encouraging us to *Center Blackness* Sacred Blackness, Beauty-Filled Blackness: Black Soulfulness, Black Culture, Black & Brown Lives!
• Sister Sankofa, thank you for weaving us into deeper connection with community and with our shared values.  
• Thank you for your commitment to creating multiracial community and making VT safer for Black and Brown people. 
• Thank you for being an exceptionally caring friend who’s presence and generosity of spirit deeply moved and transformed many of us.  
• You will be deeply deeply missed.  

CALL TO ACTION  

Sister Sankofa was always pushing us to do the work. To unbody white supremacy.  Get into good trouble.  Show up for each other over time.  


As a Reparations Activist, she wanted us to actually shift the material situation of people who are marginalized.  


She often asked for a small step right alongside the big vision. 
Her asks require actually showing up, providing a skill, making an ask of someone you know.  


So with all this momentum.  With all this love and vision she was stirring.  With all this weaving of community that she wanted to weave.  What are we going to do with it?  How will we stay connected to the web she wove?  How will we be called to action and also to rest in her honor? What small steps will you take?  What big steps will you take?

”If Sister is calling us to action then she's calling us to speak the truth on systems of injustice as they show up in our everyday lives. She's asking us to take responsibility for our communities to be loving places for everyone, to uproot the white supremacy in our hearts and to help one another do the same.”

“She is calling us to act our liberation, to assert our individual and collective power, to embrace change, embody the freedom we so deserve, and continue to show up for the work.”

She is asking us to be responsible, to build healthy community as reparation. To create spaces for multi-cultural organizing, a BIPOC Ally Center, a space for healing and reparations. 

She is asking us to keep dreaming, dream big.
To Keep having fun, keep loving each other and keep caring for each other.

What call to action do you think Sister Sankofa would ask of you?  

Let’s take a moment to listen….

****PAUSE****

What is something we can do today? 

In the words of her email footer as said by Rev Jesse Jackson, Audre Lorde, then John Lewis:
WE can Keep hope alive! &
Dare to be powerful 

We can "Speak up, speak out, get in the way...Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America".  

And today, if your grief allows, you can weave the web stronger, 
look around the room and either today or soon, find 3 new people to meet, talk to, connect with, and potentially to dream with and do the work with.  


A FINAL GOODBYE

Thank you Sister Sankofa.  You inspired us deeply.  I love you.  We love you.  
May I make you proud.  May we make you proud.
Rest in Power.  Rest in Peace. 

​

Photo Above: Sister Sankofa presenting at one of her Money Matters Conferences.

Photo Below: Sister Sankofa on the radio (Relocalizing Vermont with Carl Etnier) with Abbi talking about our work with the My Grandmother's Hands study groups in connection to the play Pass Over at Lost Nation Theater.  Listen Here.  Our section begins at 12:14.

Photo Below: Sister Sankofa speaking on the Statehouse Lawn as a part of the Race Against Racism
​events of May 2023.