THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 26, 1996 TAG: 9605230068
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARSHA GILBERT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 146 lines
THE WRITER, editor, designer, typesetter, sales representative and publisher of The Apex newsletter and Scribe Publication Services all work out of a small, living room-office.
But there's plenty of space because they all answer to the same name. Sakhira NuAmen.
Being the only employee makes it easy to make decisions and cuts down on how much it costs to throw the office party. But it isn't so easy running two news-generating businesses. Even if you are a desktop dynamo.
But NuAmen's one-woman ventures are thriving. The Apex, which hit bookstores, barber shops, colleges and businesses in the African-American community in December, expects to more than double its circulation to 5,000 by the end of the year. The mission of each issue is to promote creative, economic and educational ``blacktivities.''
``The response to The Apex has been phenomenal,'' says NuAmen, 40, from her home/office in Virginia Beach. ``I need to go from 12 to 20 pages. I even get requests from prisoners to receive the newsletter. The money I make from Scribe keeps both businesses alive.''
Through Scribe she designed and indexed several editions of The Black Pages USA - African-American business directories - for Hampton Roads, Roanoke, Charlottesville and Wilmington, N.C.
She's also created directories for Simba Communications of Virginia Beach called African American Connection and Woman to Woman.
Doing several things at once is nothing new for NuAmen. She once worked for four radio stations at the same time.
The Apex newsletter ``came to me in a dream,'' says NuAmen, who wears her hair in thick, shoulder-length braids and is dressed in an African print pants set.
But NuAmen is not dreaming about her success. The newsletter, which is distributed free and is also available through paid subscriptions, has struck a responsive chord with its message of self-reliance.
Its tone is a lot like NuAmen. Sincere. Optimistic. Tell-it-like-it-is.
In one recent editorial, Nu-Amen, a vegetarian, lashed out against the evils of eating meat. As a result, an advertiser canceled. NuAmen calls it the price of being honest.
``We have to take care of the body temple,'' she says. ``Humans don't have the teeth or digestive system to eat meat. That's why there are so many illnesses like diabetes and heart trouble in people who eat meat.''
In another editorial, NuAmen took to task some people's standards of beauty.
``I wrote it to wake people up,'' she says. ``Black women buy into a belief that their hair needs to be long and straight to be beautiful. They're wearing 20 pounds of Korean hair, with fake nails glued on and heavy makeup. Common respect is the most basic form of solidarity.''
Obviously, NuAmen isn't concerned about losing advertising dollars. She says she didn't start the newsletter to make a profit.
So don't look for ads for tobacco products, alcohol or psychics in The Apex.
``I want to promote a more beneficial image,'' says NuAmen. ``It's about ethics, not money. We're after a different audience. There's too much emphasis on the negative. We need to have one thing in this community that puts together our events and looks good, with no government intervention.''
NuAmen's passion for journalism was born not long after she was.
``I've always been an avid reader,'' says the Pittsburgh native. ``When I was little and had to go to bed, I used to read with a flashlight under the covers.''
NuAmen grew up to be a news reporter for USA Today, The Florida-Times Union and the Jacksonville Business Journal.
It's no wonder she's combined her skill of writing and computer graphics to form companies that use both.
The companies operate out of a room dominated by two personal computers, with tape backup, color bubble inkjet printer and scanner. A wall unit crammed with more than 1,400 albums is a reminder of her disc jockey days. On another wall hang photographs of activist-comedian Dick Gregory, and African-American authors Jawanza Kunjufu, Dr. Tony Martin and Shahrazad Ali.
Given her strong Afrocentric background it's also not surprising she's chosen to speak out on issues that affect African Americans.
NuAmen has been studying about racial pride since her teens. Three years ago she, her husband Linell and two youngest children became began practicing the ancient Kamitic philosophy known as Ausar Auset.
``It is the largest Pan African International Sect,'' she says. ``Our one purpose in life is to strive toward the God within us, through perfection, meditation and yoga.''
Her full name, Sakhira NuAmen - she changed it from Pamela Felder - means ``one who raises the Life Force to the celestial waters of heaven.''
She has a 21-year-old son named Diallo, which means ``bold'' in West African. She also has a 13-year-old son, Dartanyan, and a 4-year-old daughter, Alexandria.
NuAmen says she inherited her enterprising spirit from her father. He worked in construction, sold sodas from the trunk of his car, owned property, fixed cars, and taught her that if you want something done you have to do it yourself.
She's taken the advice to heart.
After earning a certificate in commercial art in a high school vocational technical program, she moved to Buffalo, where she lived with her brother. The next three years were a whirlwind. She worked in a head shop, which sold paraphernalia for drug use, and managed a record store. She also got married, gave birth to Diallo, left her husband and moved to rural Ridgeland, S.C., to become a radio disc jockey.
``I wanted to cool out,'' says NuAmen, laughing. ``I was tired of the big city. In Ridgeland I cranked up the transmitter and signed on the air at 6 a.m. I felt so responsible. That little town really needed the station. When I signed off at 2, I went out and sold ads for the station.''
She and Diallo made the 30-mile drive each weekend between her weekday job in Ridgeland playing Top 40 R&B and her weekend job in Savannah, Ga., spinning progressive rock and, later, jazz. Diallo took naps on the couch of the radio stations.
After she ``ran these stations'' for a few years, she moved to Jacksonville, Fla., and worked as the continuity director, planning the broadcast schedule at a country-western station.
NuAmen graduated from Florida Junior College in Jacksonville in 1983, with a major in television production.
These were financially rough times for NuAmen and Diallo. She was able to get scholarships to pay for college, but they had to receive welfare to pay for day care and to survive.
``We lived below the poverty level,'' she says. ``We got food from the food bank. I cooked grits on a kerosene heater. We didn't have a stove for five months. There was no heat, but there were plenty of roaches everywhere. The one window was in the back of the apartment.
``I was on welfare for two years. Welfare was just a Band-aid for me. It was never gonna be a way of life. My first husband never helped us. He was court-ordered to pay $10 a week, but he didn't even do that. I chose to be out there. I wasn't gonna cop out and go home broke. I would only go home successful.''
She did succeed in graduating from the University of Florida in 1992, with a degree in communications/print journalism and a minor in commercial art.
She and Linell, who works in in ternal communications with the Navy, were married in Jacksonville. The family has been stationed in Virginia Beach since 1993.
NuAmen hopes to put down in Virginia Beach for a good while and spread the message of self-reliance through her publishing businesses. Just the thought of it gets her fired up.
``God is sending me so many ideas, I'm going to need two of me to get it all done,'' says NuAmen. ``I want to do it all.''
For now, just one Sakhira Nu-Amen seems to be doing quite a bit. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/The Virginian-Pilot
The Apex newsletter and regional editions of The Black Pages USA are
published out of a Virginia Beach woman's living room.
``The response to The Apex has been phenomenal,'' says Sakhira
NuAmen. The idea for starting a newsletter on African-American
concerns came to her in a dream.
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