Friends Remember an Inspring Literary Talent

Philippe E. Wamba ’93, a rising African-American literary talent, was memorialized Saturday at a somber three-hour service that drew a cross-cultural congregation of more than 100 to Cambridge’s First Unitarian Universalist Church.

Wamba, who studied history and lived in Dunster House, died in an automobile accident in Kenya on Sept. 11 after a truck collided with the car he was driving.

Current and former Harvard students and faculty joined Wamba’s parents and fiancee, who traveled from Africa for the service.

Wamba was eulogized by a number of close friends and family members, including DuBois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. and Wamba’s Harvard classmates.

The service also included a musical performance by Harvard’s Kuumba Singers.

Wamba, who was raised in Tanzania, had returned to Africa just six months before his death to begin work on a book of essays about African youth movements.

Before departing for his homeland, Wamba served as the editor-in-chief of the Cambridge-based Africana.com website, which Gates founded in 1999 to educate Americans about African culture.

At the service, Gates recalled Wamba’s initial reluctance to participate in the project and his delight when Wamba accepted the position.

Gates said that his delight turned to sadness in March when Wamba announced that he would resign from Africana.com to begin researching for his second book.

“It was a blow to me personally when he left Cambridge, but he had done everything he wanted to do,” Gates said. “He was writing to follow his heart—I treasured that heart as well as his mind.”

Gates, who had become Wamba’s mentor and friend during his time at Harvard, remembered his former student fondly, calling him “one of God’s natural aristocrats.”

“Of Philippe Wamba, we can truly say, ‘There lies the honor of our race.’”

“Philippe lived on no man’s hyphen,” Gates said. “He was an African and an America, a writer and an editor, a son and a lover.”

As Gates concluded his remarks, he announced the establishment of an endowed prize, which will be awarded annually to a student interested in studying the African diaspora.

“For as long as Harvard stands, Philippe Wamba’s name will be chiseled in stone—just as it should be,” he said.

Wamba’s friends and family tearfully remembered both a scholar and generous friend who enjoyed a diversity of activities.

Friends said Wamba loved listening to reggae and hip-hop music and served as a disc jockey at Harvard’s radio station, WHRB, while an undergraduate. He was also an active and influential member of the Harvard African Students Association.

Kevin Young ’93 recalled meeting Wamba at a party in 1990.

“I never knew [Wamba] to leave a party early or call it a night,” Young said. “It is strange and sad for him to leave us so early.”

“I don’t know who plans these ironies, but they are very sad and very cruel,” said Nana Twum Danso ’94, who was to have visited Wamba in Africa on the day of his memorial service.

But Danso concentrated mostly on her happy memories of Wamba, with whom she shared a passion for music and African culture.

“He was a leader, but you didn’t realize you were following him,” she said. “He had a way of bringing you along.”

Danso elicited the only laugh of the service when she said, “He was one of the smartest people I have ever met, and yet he wasn’t a geek—there are a lot of geeks at Harvard.”

Wamba’s impact, though, reached farther than just the Harvard community, according to Africana.com Chief Executive Officer Kenn Turner.

He read excerpts from a few of the more than 150 messages that have been posted on the website by Wamba’s classmates, friends, acquaintances and others whom he had never met but were inspired by his memoir, Kinship: A Family’s Journey in Africa and America.

In the memoir, Wamba wrote about his cross-cultural upbringing as the son of a Congolese rebel leader and a school teacher from Detroit.

He addressed the challenges that he and other African expatriates face and drew the conclusion that coming from two decidedly different worlds could sometimes mean belonging to neither.

At later receptions in the Carpenter Center and at Central Square’s Enormous Room, both Gates and Turner alluded to the eulogy delivered by actor Ossie Davis at the funeral of Malcolm X in 1965.

Turner addressed Wamba directly: “We bid you good night, our sweet, tall, proud, African prince.”