An African art piece titled “The Wise Man'' stood proudly at the front of the store with a cigar in his mouth. Adjwoa thought the piece would look much better if the cigar were lit, so she took creative liberty and did it herself.
Soon after, she heard a patron's voice from the front of the store. “Oh my god, this store is so cool! They have a statue on fire,” the voice said.
“What’re they talking about?” Tyehimba’s father asked before he saw the smoke rise.
Tyehimba got in huge trouble that day.
Tyehimba, now a grown woman with an African name and a Southern twang, has been working at Oak Cliff's Pan-African Connection since the time she learned to count. Her father, Bandele Tyehimba, created the Pan-African Connection Bookstore, Art Gallery and Resource Center 35 years ago to fill a void. His heart longed to know where he came from, so he traveled to Africa. While he was there, he fell in love with the people, art and culture, so he brought pieces back to share and sell in the U.S.
Pan-African Connection, at 4466 S. Marsalis Ave., has become a place where people can find community and themselves. The center provides several free events for the public, including cooking classes, health and tech programs, Swahili lessons and more.
“I loved the bookstore because I saw the need for it,” Adjwoa Tyehimba says. “You need education; it will set you apart from everybody. Our store teaches other people who historical figures really were.”
After her father died in 2012, Adjwoa Tyehimba stepped away from her work as a biologist to help run the store. She serves as the store’s chief financial officer — while keeping inventory, running the website and coordinating events.
She helped coordinate what she believed was one of the best things in Dallas: the Ubuntu market.
The market, held every first and third Sunday, was a festival full of color, laughter and culture. It allowed small, Black business owners to learn, share their products and build clientele.
Along with the introduction to African culture, growing up in the store taught Tyehimba deeply human lessons. Contributing to her father's vision introduced her to people from all walks of life, and she felt compassion for all of them, whether they walked into the store with thousands to spend or with nothing.
“We're just here to put people in a better position than they were before,” Tyehimba says.
Sometimes setting people up for success looks like a discount on a food safety course. Other times, it's a kind word of advice or a free product.
“We help the underdog, we help them become a better them, whether it was a book we suggested, or a hair product, or even just putting art in their homes,” Tyehimba says. “We just treat people like human beings.”
Little Shop of Heroes
Damien Brown's life changed the day he walked into Pan-African Connection. After spending most of his childhood being shuffled from one foster home to another, he looked for ways to cure his craving for stability. When he walked into the store one Saturday morning, he asked for a job, unaware that he had found it.The path behind him was marked with violence and constant upheaval; the one before him embraced him and welcomed him home. He found security in the humble maze of books, clothes, jewelry and sculptures scattered throughout the shop. He found community in the people who breathed life into the store.
“Being in CPS I felt like I was on my own, but they gave me the love and positivity I needed at the time,” Brown says of Pan-African. “Back then I would compare myself to Dennis the Menace. Now I‘d say I’m like Mr. Rogers.”
Akwete Tyehimba met her husband, Bandele, at a Black Student Organization meeting at Northlake College, where he was passing out “revolutionary-type literature.” Years later, the Tyemhimba family worked together to cultivate Bandele’s vision of unity.
“Bandele had more of an understanding of his history and his culture then than I did,” Akwete Tyehimba says of her late husband, Adjwoa's father. “I knew about the strength of my people, but as far as the history, the politics and other socioeconomic systems, I had no idea. Bandele wanted to create a vehicle for our people, a place where we could come organize, strategize and find out who we are and what we need to do to transform our lives as far as liberating our people from oppression.”
After her husband's death, folks didn’t see Akwete continuing the business. People assumed Pan-African Connection had gone with him.
“It's very challenging, taking the baton from my husband, who was such a great figure in this community, but I could not close the business,” Akwete Tyehimba says. “ I've also been a student of history and I know how important it is to keep these institutions open.”
Akwete Tyehimba wears many hats — she’s the CEO, but she is also a leader and a counselor. Her days are spent taking phone calls, talking to vendors and offering guidance or encouragement to lost souls who find themselves in the store.
“I'm a much stronger woman now because I have to be,” she says. “I do understand that I am now an elder in the community and I'm very humbled to be in this position.”
Akwete Tyehimba insists, with a fist against the table, that bookstores like Pan-African Connection are crucial to the development and liberation of the Black community.
“At one point the FBI watched Black bookstores because they understood the level of consciousness that came out of these places,” she says. “I want to be that bookstore where people can come and get information that is not purely mainstream. It's very important that we can come here to decide who our leaders are, what our issues are and how we're going to deal with them.”
She also encourages people to embrace faith and use their culture as a guiding light.
“We have to understand that there is a force greater than ourselves and we're gonna be all right," Akwete Tyehimba says. “Our culture is so beautiful. A lot of the art that we have here has many messages, and it gives us direction; it was created for our forward movement. To go far, you need to know who you are.”
Akwete loves sharing her wisdom with young people. She gives tours and watches children's eyes light up as she unmasks all the lies they've been told about themselves.
“We've been taught to hate ourselves," she says. “Even other cultures have been taught that we were not as competent. For me, having the opportunity to dispel those negative ideas and myths that have been perpetuated on our people has been impactful. Transforming the minds of our people to see their greatness, to walk taller and feel the strength of their ancestors, it's a beautiful thing.”
Ultimately, Akwete hopes that people feel safe and protected when they walk into the store. She wants to allow them to be transformed.
“It's a very humble setting, but it's a beautiful place,” she says. “Hopefully you’ll be exposed. You'll see Mother Africa, you will see the greatness of African people, and hopefully, you will have the confidence that you need to go out and make your ancestors proud.”
Lately, the pressure of running this business for the last three-and-a-half decades weighs heavy on Akwete Tyehimba, but she is still constantly encouraged by the people she connects with every day.
“Sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed and exhausted,” she says. “But people will come in, and say, ‘Thank you for having this place, I'm so thankful it's here’ and they’re sincere about it. I'm inspired every day to have the opportunity to see these positive people that it's really hard to get too frustrated with what's going on. I'm blessed every day just by the people that come through these doors.”
