By Willy Stern, Photos by Susan Adcock
The corporate headquarters of Winston-Derek Publishers Group is located in a white, low-slung office building at 101 French Landing in Nashville’s MetroCenter office complex. The building does not look all that different from many of the other corporate offices in MetroCenter, but it houses a mix of enterprises that is unique, at least in Nashville. Winston-Derek, a small publishing house that specializes in African American and religious titles, shares the 19,500-square-foot “Sankofa Plaza” with the Sankofa African Heritage Museum, which opened in November 1997 as a showcase for African artifacts.
Both the publishing company and the museum are presided over by James W. Peebles, founder and director of the museum and president of Winston-Derek Publishers. The name of the publishing company is, in fact, a conjunction of his middle name and the first name of his son, Derek.
An eloquent speaker, Peebles has been treated kindly by the local press in recent years. Diversity-conscious reporters at The Tennessean have repeatedly written flattering articles about Peebles as a businessman, art collector, and leader in the black community. Several of the Tennessean articles, now framed, hang in Peebles’ cluttered office. “They don’t mean anything to me,” he demurs, “but my guests like to see them.”
In April 1996, the Nashville Scene reported charges by art dealers that some of the supposedly authentic African artworks in Peebles’ collection are, in fact, reproductions; otherwise, he has enjoyed a surprising lack of scrutiny from either the media or the general public. Meanwhile, among authors who have signed contracts with Winston-Derek Publishers, Peebles stands at the center of a roiling controversy.
Disgruntled authors charge him with business dealings that are, at the very least, shrewd and, many claim, unethical. Of 24 Winston-Derek authors interviewed by the Scene, 16 identified themselves as African American; one declined to say whether she is black or white. In other interviews with the Scene, several former employees of Winston-Derek Publishing alleged that Peebles preys on uneducated, low-income writers who lack the sophistication and financial resources to sue him after their book deals go bad. Many of those writers are black.
Eva Phillips is a Nashville grandmother who paid Peebles $11,932 to publish two children’s books; now she is trying to recover money that, she claims, he stole from her. Phillips, who is black, described Peebles as “nothing but a nigger and a damn fly who thinks he’s above the law.”
Isaac O. Olaleye, another black author who charges that he was ripped off by Peebles, said, “If a white man had treated a black man as Peebles has treated me, the black man would have howled, ‘Foul!’ ‘Discrimination!’ ” Willie Corbett, an African American writer from Tacoma, Wash., says the situation is particularly maddening because, as she sees it, she was taken advantage of by a black man purporting to “want to help black writers.”
Numerous letters of complaint about Winston-Derek and Peebles are on file with the Better Business Bureau of Nashville and the Division of Consumer Affairs at the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance. Responding to complaints, investigators from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation service have interviewed Winston-Derek authors and employees about the company’s alleged wrongdoings. They are also investigating Peebles himself for possible criminal activity.
Peebles, however, said he is unaware of any investigation and called the various allegations against him “lies, distortions, and just deviousness.”
Staffers at Tennessee Tribune and The Urban Journal, two Nashville papers that focus on the local African American community, are aware of the problems surrounding Peebles. Nevertheless, a staffer at the Tribune said, “Sadly, we are not going to be held responsible for hanging one of our own.”
Tall flagpoles line the road in front of the Winston-Derek building. The U.S. flag flies alongside the Tennessee state flag, flags from African and Caribbean countries, and a flag depicting a sankofa, the West African bird that gives Peebles’ museum its name. As pictured on the flag, the sankofa is peering over its shoulder because, Peebles said, the word “sankofa” suggests looking “back to the source.” In Peebles’ view, both his museum and his publishing house tie into the spirit of the sankofa by using books, art, and culture to help black Americans reconnect with their African heritage.
Looking over its shoulder in recent weeks, the sankofa might have caught a glimpse of Autumn Catlett, an angry author from Nashville, carrying a picket sign with the message “James Peebles Steals from Authors.”
Catlett says she paid Winston-Derek approximately $7,000 to publish her book, Black Butterfly, the fictional story of a black woman’s coming-of-age. Then, she says the company failed to print the book on time, and, when it did come out, Winston-Derek printed far fewer copies than the contract called for. “He is a crook, plain and simple, who has been stealing for years,” the 32-year-old Catlett told the Scene.
Incensed by her alleged treatment by Winston-Derek, Catlett began calling other Winston-Derek writers to check on their experiences with the publisher. What she encountered was a flock of irate essayists, poets, and novelists, who have now organized into an informal network of Winston-Derek debunkers. Catlett and the other disillusioned writers all say the company printed fewer books than the number specified in their contracts, and they say even those books were delivered late. They also charge that Winston-Derek has not paid them their royalties and has not marketed or promoted their books as promised. In all, more than 20 authors who have entered into arrangements with Winston-Derek told the Scene that the company has taken their money and then failed to deliver on its end of the bargain.
Peebles made his first foray into publishing in 1974, and his company is now one of the most high-profile African-American-owned businesses in Nashville. Over the years, the company has published approximately 1,000 titles. Last year, Winston-Derek published 20 books.
In an August 1993 interview in The Tennessean, Peebles said he was only 9 years old when he had the flash of inspiration that led to his publishing career. One day, he told the interviewer, he saw what seemed to him a curious painting, thrown in a dumpster. It depicted a black Madonna surrounded by “colored angels.”
Having been taught that everyone in the Bible was white, Peebles said, he suddenly realized there must be non-white angels as well. Later in life, according to the Tennessean interview, he attempted to set the record straight by writing books “about African biblical characters, but no one would publish them.” Frustrated, Peebles decided to start his own publishing company. It’s mission would be to publish religious—and secular—books about African Americans and their concerns.
One of Peebles’ most successful books has been John L. Johnson’s The Black Biblical Heritage, first published by Winston-Derek in 1990. Since then, according to Peebles, it has sold more than 50,000 copies. But another big revenue source for the company has been what Peebles calls its “cooperative” publishing program, a system in which authors pay a Winston-Derek subsidiary to publish their books. Autumn Catlett—and other angry Winston-Derek authors—entered into cooperative agreements with Peebles’ company.
Winston-Derek’s cooperative program has all the appearances of a typical “vanity press,” or “subsidy press,” willing to publish the work of any writer who can pay for the service. In many instances, vanity presses attract inexperienced, previously unpublished authors who want to see their manuscripts in print. Winston-Derek’s cooperative program attracts just this sort of writer, but Peebles insists his program is different. A vanity press will take money to publish any work, without regard for its quality or salability, he says, while Winston-Derek scrupulously reviews the manuscripts it receives.
Peebles says he has rejected many manuscripts. Yet when asked to furnish the name of any writer whose manuscript had ever been rejected by Winston-Derek, he was unable to do so. Instead, he provided Scene reporters with a thick file of letters from authors who, after having had their manuscripts accepted, balked at paying the company to publish their works.
Some writers discover Winston-Derek the way Hope Brophy, a grandmother in Grosse Pointe, Mich., did. Brophy stumbled upon Winston-Derek in a copy of Writer’s Market, which lists hundreds of publishers. “At first I was under the impression [Peebles] was a minister,” Brophy recalled. “I was misled.”
At one time, Winston-Derek was also listed in The Christian Writers’ Market Guide, a reference similar to Writer’s Market, but customized for the religious press. Now, however, the company is not included in either guide. A spokeswoman for The Christian Writers’ Market Guide said Winston-Derek was deleted after the Guide received numerous complaints from authors. A Writer’s Market spokeswoman said Winston-Derek was dropped from the Market because it primarily does subsidy publishing. Peebles says he was dropped from the two guides because he decided not to send in the necessary forms.
When Brophy submitted her manuscript to Winston-Derek, she received what seemed to be a thoughtful written response from a Winston-Derek representative. Similar letters to other would-be authors make it clear that this is standard operating procedure at Peebles’ company. The writer is told that his manuscript has been accepted for publication. The acceptance letter suggests that the book has been selected out of many submissions, based on its literary merit.
If the writer is interested, Winston-Derek sends a contract. In its standard form, the contract calls for the writer to pay Winston-Derek $6,000 to $8,000, in three equal installments. In turn, Winston-Derek agrees to print, sell, market, promote, and distribute 1,000 to 2,000 of the author’s books. The author is to receive royalties based upon the book’s sales. According to the contract, any dispute between Winston-Derek and the author will be decided by an arbitrator in Nashville, not by a court of law.
The Scene interviewed 24 writers who signed contracts with Winston-Derek. In each case, the writer said the publishing deal had not worked out as promised. “Peebles’ game is to be all things to all people,” Autumn Catlett said. “To black authors, he pretends to understand how difficult it is to secure a contract with a large white publishing company. To Christian authors he pretends to be in love with God. To the elderly, he represents their last chance to leave a body of work behind.” All of them, she said, end up disappointed.
Worse yet, several former Winston-Derek employees, all speaking on condition of anonymity, alleged that Peebles’ cooperative publishing program is nothing more than a scam, designed to separate naive, unsuspecting first-time authors from their money. One former Winston-Derek employee said, “We were all basically told to lie [to writers] in order to get the money. Then, when we got that last payment, we stopped talking to them.”
“Peebles could be pretty crafty in his dishonesty,” another former employee said. “The books weren’t important to him. It was getting the money from the authors that he cared about.”
Admittedly, the Winston-Derek publishing operation is riddled with problems that would seem to make it virtually impossible to publish any book successfully. The company’s failure to deliver books to its writers can be explained, in part, by the fact Winston-Derek is so badly in debt that it cannot pay its printers.
Many Winston-Derek books are printed in Middle Tennessee by two companies: Jostens in Clarksville, and Vaughan Printing in Nashville. Peebles said he owes approximately $42,000 to Vaughan and $53,000 to Jostens. Representatives of both printing companies declined comment.
The Scene has obtained an audio tape of a telephone conversation that occurred in May between Bill Fain, a longtime Winston-Derek employee, and Sharon Ellis, a disgruntled author from The Colony, Texas. In the taped conversation, Fain, who was not working for the company at the time, informed Ellis that both Jostens and Vaughan had “quit releasing books to [Peebles] about a year ago.” Fain went on to say Winston-Derek was still accepting checks from writers, although the company could not print their books. Manuscripts were continuing to pour in “from new authors all the time,” said Fain. “But [Peebles] can’t print no books.”
Ellis asked Fain if people at Winston-Derek knew they were defrauding the unsuspecting authors. Interrupting himself with laughter, Fain responded, “Well, I would say yes. I would honestly say yes. But there ain’t nothing they can do about it.”
Fain, who has since gone back to working for Winston-Derek, now says the statements he made were untrue, and he blames them on the fact that he was “intoxicated” and “angry” at the time.
Although Peebles himself acknowledges that his company owes considerable amounts to Jostens and Vaughan Printing, he says only 10 authors have been affected by those financial difficulties. In letters, he has reassured authors that their books have “just been released from press,” when, in fact, those books are being held hostage by a printer who is waiting to be paid. Peebles says he has written such letters because he “honestly thought” he could work out his money problems; it was not his intention, he says, to “mislead” the authors.
Peebles also admits that he does not regularly print the 1,000 or 2,000 books promised to the author in the company’s standard contract. Instead, he says, he often prints only half the required number. There is nothing questionable about that procedure, Peebles insists, because a book’s first printing, as he explains it, can come in several installments, released over a span of “four or five years.”
Once a contract is signed, Winston-Derek authors say, communication with the publishing house deteriorates. Many writers receive letters written over fictitious names. According to former Winston-Derek production manager Dawn Kellerby, the made-up names are used so that, when upset writers call the company to complain, they will have no one to talk to. Several letters made available to the Scene were signed by “Robert Earl,” although Peebles acknowledges that no person with that name has ever worked at Winston-Derek.
Peebles admits that fake names are used on Winston-Derek correspondence, but only for “internal reasons”—to help his employees sort the letters. He says he has never intentionally lied to any authors.
Former Winston-Derek employees tell a different story. When authors call to complain about their royalty statements, which are often late and confusing, the staffers say Peebles instructs them to string the writers along and tell the writers, “Dr. Peebles is unavailable.” According to local Winston-Derek author Garlinda Burton, “It’s been incredibly difficult to have a conversation with him, or to get a professional and comprehensive accounting of how my book has done.” Peebles’ explanation is that many authors don’t read their contracts, or that they don’t understand their agreement with the company.
The Scene’s interviews with former Winston-Derek employees suggest that the authors have plenty of reasons to be unhappy. No effort is made to market most of the company’s books, the former employees say, and there is no sales staff.
Before Peebles moved his offices to MetroCenter last year, Winston-Derek Publishers was located at 1722 West End Ave., where he also operated a bookstore. According to one former employee, who worked for Peebles at that location, “We’d make up a catalogue, and he’d stock his little bookstore, but that was about it.”
In his conversation with Sharon Ellis, taped this past May, Fain agreed with the description of Peebles’ publishing operation as a “con game.” Fain explained that Winston-Derek’s books don’t sell because Peebles “don’t market them.”
But Peebles contends that his marketing budget has sometimes been so large that his “bankers have complained.” He says he has made numerous “marketing” trips to Africa and the Middle East to attend book fairs, but he also acknowledges that he has not been overseas since the book market took a downturn in 1996.
Meanwhile, the list of complaints from frustrated writers goes on and on. Seventy-eight-year-old Neil Duke of Joliet, Mont., received a letter from Peebles in which Peebles threatened to destroy all of Duke’s books if Duke didn’t buy them himself. Duke’s books were taking up space in Peebles’ warehouse, the letter said.
Just weeks ago, at a time when Peebles was unable to pay his printing bills, first-time author Reazonda Smith, a 43-year-old single mother in Tallahassee, Fla., received a contract dated July 20, 1998. Excited to get an acceptance letter from Winston-Derek, Smith was prepared to spend a large chunk of her life savings to publish Miss Rhonda’s Book of Nursery Rhymes. She was on the verge of handing over $7,000 to Peebles earlier this month when a friend in Nashville warned her about Peebles’ reputation.
Marie D. Calder, a kindergarten teacher in Estevan, Saskatchewan, took out a loan from a credit union to pay Winston-Derek more than $10,000 to publish her children’s book, Humpty Dumpty Is A Friend Of Mine. Peebles published the book in 1997, about six months late, given the terms of Calder’s contract. To date, Calder says she has received only one royalty check from Winston-Derek; it came to less than $250. At the same time, she estimates she has lost more than 15,000 Canadian dollars to Peebles, about half her annual take-home pay.
Winston-Derek’s cooperative publishing operation is plagued with problems, but the more traditional side of his publishing business—the side that actually pays writers to write books—is faring no better.
Alveda King, a niece of Martin Luther King Jr., is the author of I Don’t Want Your Man, I Want My Own, which was published by Winston-Derek in 1994. Peebles’ company paid Alveda King to publish the book, which deals with women’s attitudes toward men, but now she has few kind words for Winston-Derek. King said she had been “treated unfairly by Peebles” but would not elaborate because she is anticipating a lawsuit against the publisher.
John L. Johnson, whose The Black Biblical Heritage has been one of Winston-Derek’s most popular titles, also says he is considering legal action to recover monies he believes the company owes him.
Then there’s the case of Rev. Cain Hope Felder, Ph.D., who is listed as general editor of The Original African Heritage Study Bible, published by a Winston-Derek subsidiary in 1993. Felder, who is a professor of biblical studies at Howard University and chairman of the university’s Biblical Institute for Social Change, estimates that Peebles owes him at least $250,000 in royalties from the Study Bible. Nevertheless, Felder said he has kept quiet for years because he didn’t see how any good would come from public squabbling among African American leaders. Now Felder is ready to break the silence.
“One might say I was used as a turkey by Peebles, to be carved up later because I had legitimate academic credentials,” says Felder. “Unfortunately, that man is obsessed with the ruthless pursuit of profits by any means necessary.” Peebles’ response is that Felder actually owes him money, since in the past, in times of need, he has given money to Felder’s biblical institute.
Others who have done business with Winston-Derek in other publishing ventures have also been left disillusioned. Media consultant Dan Kellerby set up a venture capital group in 1994, raising $50,000 to sell the African Heritage Study Bible through television ads. Despite what Kellerby describes as “huge sales,” the investment group only received one payment, “a fraction of what was owed” from Peebles, Kellerby says.
The Scene has obtained a copy of Kellerby’s contract with Peebles. Still, Peebles denies the charge, even going so far as to say he never had a contract with Kellerby.
At least one business, Chicago-based Lushena Books, which distributes Winston-Derek titles, has had positive dealings with Peebles’ company. Lushena sales manager Prizger Gonzales says his firm has a “good relationship” with Winston-Derek.
A number of Winston-Derek authors are convinced that Peebles has used their money to finance the construction of his multimillion-dollar Sankofa African Heritage Museum. In a complaint against Peebles, on file in Davidson County Chancery Court, writer Marylou Gari alleges that monies she paid Peebles to publish her book have instead been used for the “improvement of real estate” where the museum is located.
Documents on file with the Small Business Administration indicate that Peebles borrowed more than $2.3 million to build his museum. In the telephone conversation taped in May, Bill Fain said it had been Peebles’ “intentions all along” to divert money provided by Winston-Derek authors into the museum.
Meanwhile, authorities on African art say many of the artifacts in the Sankofa Museum are nothing more than cheap, if sophisticated, reproductions, produced in Africa in recent years for the export market. “It’s an outrage to pay good money to see bad art,” said Charles Davis, owner of the Davis Gallery in New Orleans, La., and an adviser on African art for The New Orleans Museum of Art. “Somebody ought to shut the Sankofa down.”
Roy Sieber, distinguished professor emeritus at Indiana University and the acknowledged dean of African art experts, said, “If Peebles’ art museum were legitimate, it would have been reviewed by an established journal, but that would potentially be very embarrassing to him.”
Peebles acknowledges that, in the past, he may have been the victim of unscrupulous art dealers who sold the Sankofa Museum inferior pieces. He says he has now removed all the imitation art.
But regardless of how Peebles spends his publishing company’s money, it looks as if Winston-Derek is in for a tough ride. Numerous authors still claim Winston-Derek owes them money, and the firm is in debt to the two local printing companies. Peebles also acknowledges that the company is behind on payments to the Small Business Administration and SunTrust Bank, which helped finance the purchase of the MetroCenter property.
Peebles says most of Winston-Derek’s problems stem from a nationwide slump in the book industry. But book industry experts aren’t impressed by that explanation. “The consumer publishing business has flattened, but the arrival of superstores, and book sales over the Internet, have helped small publishers,” said Philip M. Pfeffer, former chairman and chief executive of Ingram Distribution Group and now advisor to the chairman and CEO of Random House. “You just can’t say that small publishers are getting killed.”
Peebles says he was heartened recently when the Tennessee Black Caucus managed to insert a $25,000 grant for the Sankofa Museum into the state budget. Although the money has been approved by the Legislature, Rep. Joe Armstrong, chairman of the Black Caucus, emphasized that the $25,000 is not “a blank check” and noted that the funds are subject to a state audit. On July 31, Peebles sent a letter to Metro Council members requesting that Metro provide financial support for the museum too.
In the meantime, Peebles is trying to bring in revenues from a variety of sources. He often rents out a party room adjacent to the Sankofa Museum for social functions. For such events, Peebles handles the catering and often includes a tour of the museum in the entertainment. A Meharry Medical College graduation party at Sankofa this spring was “just fantastic,” according to Henry A. Moses, a professor of biochemistry and associate vice president of college relations and lifelong learning at Meharry.
Guests at some other functions have not come away so happy. At some events, guests say, they have been required to check their coats at a charge of $1 per garment. A former Peebles employee, whose responsibilities included taking coats at Sankofa events, says Peebles instructed her to charge the fee and tell the visitors that a Metro fire ordinance required that all coats be checked. (“He’s making that up. There’s no such code,” said Metro deputy fire marshal Danny Hunt.)
Peebles admits he may have fudged on the Metro fire code. But he insists that he truly believed that hundreds of coats, hanging on the backs of chairs, would create a fire hazard.
Autumn Catlett and other local writers have banded together to share horror stories about Peebles and to protest what they see as their mistreatment at his hands. Meanwhile, Winston-Derek has contracts with many other writers who live out of state, and those contracts say all writer-vs.-Winston-Derek disputes must be settled by arbitration in Nashville. Thus, Peebles is essentially challenging the authors to come to Tennessee.
Many can’t afford the trip, much less the costs of hiring an attorney. Melissa Tudor is a housewife and mother of two in Lewistown, Mont. She is the author of Alphabet Clap, a children’s book that was supposed to have been published by Winston-Derek in 1997. Tudor said she and her husband, a forester, “borrowed every dime to send to Peebles when he accepted my book, and I’ve never gotten a penny back. I feel like I’m an educated person, and I feel really stupid that I let him take advantage of me.”
But even if an author like Tudor could afford to travel to Tennessee to pursue her complaint against Winston-Derek, Nashville attorney John W. Heacock says Peebles would still have a “wicked home-court advantage.”
Heacock should know. He represents Willie Corbett, a 50-year-old author and retired school teacher in Tacoma, Wash. Corbett sent Winston-Derek three payments, totaling around $6,700, on the understanding that her work, Reflection, a book about friendship, would be published. But as far as she knows, no marketing was ever done. Corbett isn’t even sure that Peebles published the 1,000 books promised by her contract. Heacock says that even if Corbett were to pursue her case and win, it is likely she would have to go to court to recover the money she is owed. “This adds an extra layer to the process, which takes up more time and more money,” Heacock explained.
In November 1997, the state of Utah filed criminal charges against the principals of Salt Lake City-based Northwest Publishing Co. for failure to abide by the terms of their contracts with authors. Northwest’s “co-publishing” system resembles Winston-Derek’s “cooperative publishing” program. Authors paid Northwest an average of $2,000 to $9,000 to edit, publish, and market their works. The charges against the Northwest principals include 22 criminal counts involving communications fraud, racketeering, and tax evasion. A spokesman for the Utah attorney general said each of the counts carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.
Peebles seemed to be unfazed by the fact that he, too, may be under investigation by the U.S. Postal Service and the IRS. But he also seems unaffected by the criticisms leveled at him from so many sides. He maintains his rail-thin physique with regular long-distance runs along West End Avenue. He continues to wear the sporty white beachcomber’s hat that is his trademark. Discussing his problems, he remains affable and charming, even friendly. He dismisses the complaints of unhappy writers, saying they’re “just whining.” A former teacher, he says if authors can’t understand their contracts, he can’t educate them in “the basics of mathematics.”
He radiates self-confidence at times, responding to all his debunkers with undaunted bravado. “If people are out to destroy the life work of James W. Peebles, it’s too late,” he says. “I’ve given to the people the black and African literature and the art of ancient Africa to let them come into the new millennium.” But he can also project a common-man simplicity. “I’ve never been a saint and never professed to be,” he says. “I’m just a hard-working individual.” It’s hard to tell which of these is the real James Peebles, a man who seems to enjoy being inscrutable and yet all-wise.
Giving recent visitors a guided tour of the Sankofa Museum, he paused in front of a wooden statue, one that seems to be among his favorites in the collection. It represents an African spirit known as “Bimba.”
Bimba, Peebles explained, is a wise old monkey who knows all. “You may be able to fool the cops,” Peebles warned, “but you can’t fool Bimba.”
In November 1997, the state of Utah filed criminal charges against the principals of Salt Lake City-based Northwest Publishing Co. for failure to abide by the terms of their contracts with authors. Northwest’s “co-publishing” system resembles Winston-Derek’s “cooperative publishing” program. Authors paid Northwest an average of $2,000 to $9,000 to edit, publish, and market their works. The charges against the Northwest principals include 22 criminal counts involving communications fraud, racketeering, and tax evasion. A spokesman for the Utah attorney general said each of the counts carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.
Peebles seemed to be unfazed by the fact that he, too, may be under investigation by the U.S. Postal Service and the IRS. But he also seems unaffected by the criticisms leveled at him from so many sides. He maintains his rail-thin physique with regular long-distance runs along West End Avenue. He continues to wear the sporty white beachcomber’s hat that is his trademark. Discussing his problems, he remains affable and charming, even friendly. He dismisses the complaints of unhappy writers, saying they’re “just whining.” A former teacher, he says if authors can’t understand their contracts, he can’t educate them in “the basics of mathematics.”
He radiates self-confidence at times, responding to all his debunkers with undaunted bravado. “If people are out to destroy the life work of James W. Peebles, it’s too late,” he says. “I’ve given to the people the black and African literature and the art of ancient Africa to let them come into the new millennium.” But he can also project a common-man simplicity. “I’ve never been a saint and never professed to be,” he says. “I’m just a hard-working individual.” It’s hard to tell which of these is the real James Peebles, a man who seems to enjoy being inscrutable and yet all-wise.
Giving recent visitors a guided tour of the Sankofa Museum, he paused in front of a wooden statue, one that seems to be among his favorites in the collection. It represents an African spirit known as “Bimba.”
Bimba, Peebles explained, is a wise old monkey who knows all. “You may be able to fool the cops,” Peebles warned, “but you can’t fool Bimba.”
