Missing you today Daddy. Will keep your legacy alive by sharing about your life with Greyson and Parker tonight as we reflect on your birthday.

Taking care of Mimi, Alvin. You can be proud of the wonderful family you had and have.

Alvin and Bernadine I first met in the 2003, after moving to Cherboneau Pl Coop. The Auberts' were greatly miss when they moved a few years later to be near family. Even today i think about the support given by both to me, unique does not justified how to describe them both as a wonderful couple they were to me. Bernadine from time to time I run across some of Alvin writing. My deepest thanks, knowing your both has been real gifts. 

Stella

Remembering Alvin Aubert and Amiri Baraka
My introduction to Leroi Jones was reading “The End of Man is His Beauty” and “A Poem for Democrats” in 1963 in Rosey E. Pool’s anthology Beyond the Blues (Hand and Flower Press 1962). In the head note, Jones asserted that writing “beautiful poems full of mystical sociology and abstract politics” was among his ambitions. Five years later at Fort Knox, I read the anthology Black Fire, a confirmation that focused anger has purpose. When I began teaching at Tougaloo College in the fall of 1970, Home: Social Essays by LeRoi Jones was one of the textbooks in my freshman composition course. My students had to debate why Negro literature was a myth and what black writing should be. Reading Jones before and after he became Amiri Baraka and using the terrible beauty of his mind as a touchstone for engaged cultural work was simply normal for me. Keeping up with his prodigious output was mission impossible; deciding how to deal with his ideological shifts and transformations of identity was hard work. But he was teaching me constantly that nothing worth having in our tradition of perpetual struggle comes easily, I can’t mark the year in the 1980s when I finally meet Baraka, but I was relieved to discover this intellectual giant was not a man to be feared but a man with whom I could have civil discourses, with whom I could laugh and joke, with whom I could celebrate the complexities of being human. It sufficed that he would lend me his ear as I struggled with the immense range of his creativity. He was the master craftsman and teacher who taught me invaluable lessons about tradition and commitment. Baraka far exceeded his early ambitions and gave America a matchless body of engaged writing.
I learned much about our literary and cultural traditions from Alvin Aubert too, and our shared Saint James Parish, Louisiana heritage, such mutual friends as Ahmos Zu-Bolton, Pinkie Gordon Lane, Arthenia Bates Millican, Lorenzo Thomas and Tom Dent, and our devotion to teaching and writing made it easy to have a felicitous relationship. I met Aubert in 1972 during one of the annual poetry festivals at Southern University in Baton Rouge. When he founded OBSIDIAN, he invited me to serve on the editorial board. He took the risk of publishing my short story “David” and gave me generous advice about improving my jazzy poetry. We did a joint reading for E. Ethelbert Miller’s “Ascension Series” and maintained humorous correspondence for at least two decades. He arranged for me to be a visiting professor at Wayne State for a few weeks in 1987-88. Although we had a happy reunion at the 2004 Furious Flower Conference, our perspectives on literature had drifted apart and our relationship chilled. We retreated into silence. Nevertheless, I still have deep respect for Aubert’s excellence as a poet and gratitude for his generous support of emerging writers and of my struggles to find my creative voice and critical voices.
I am saddened that Alvin Aubert ( March 12, 1930-January 7, 2014) and Amiri Baraka ( October 7, 1934-January 9, 2014), poets and thinkers who had great influence on my work have died within days of one another. This is a great loss for the United States of America , for world literature, and for me. I am resigned, however, to honor their lives and works by continuing the traditions which they were devoted to enhancing. I listen carefully to their imperatives.

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
January 9, 2014

Although I didn't have the chance to meet Mr. Aubert in life, I am certain I would have enjoyed him. I know how much his daughter Deborah misses and loves him and I glad that I get to enjoy her light. She is a gift to the world, one of which I am sure he is most certainly proud.

My wife, Wendy, and I, were privileged to have Professor Aubert for African American Literature. This was at Fredonia, about 1972. This was our first exposure to writers such as Maya Angelou. The class was a transformative experience!

You will be missed greatly. LOVE ALL OF YOU!

My husband, Charles, and I had the pleasant opportunity of meeting Alvin thru Bernadine approximately 61/2 years ago but feel we've known them forever.  We also had the wonderful opportunity of hearing Alvin recite some of his poems and writings. 

Alvin left a rich legacy that will reach deep and far into the history of America. We will always remember him.

I remember well the way Alvin Aubert brought new vitality to the literary scene in Detroit. In the 1970s and 1980s, I was working as a librarian in the Language & Literature Department, across the street from Wayne State University. We were already subscribing to Obsidian, and I was so impressed by the magazine's quality and energy. In those days there were many would-be poets and writers in Detroit, trying to find their voices. Alvin and I shared a goal, and that was to help local writers understand that to have great writers we must have great readers. It was also our goal to increase cooperation between Wayne State and the Public Library, which was a treasure house of underutilized resources. Alvin understood the concept of lifelong learning; he exemplified it. I also remember being impressed by the fact that he had the great good sense to marry a librarian! I remember Alvin as a kind and strong, dignified and down-to-earth man. But mostly I remember his intelligence and dedication to literature and education. That we had such a wise and dedicated man among us is reason to celebrate and give thanks.

From Rodessa Monday Metoyer:

God truly blessed Alvin with unique talents and abilities, and Alvin used his gifts extremely well.

Alvin's positive attitude, willingness to try new things, his dedication, and caring ways ~ this shows just how much Alvin did with his gifts...
Today as you celebrate Alvin's accomplishments, remember that Alvin was a part of God's wonderful plan. Alvin represents William Ernest Henley's Invictus.

Rest in Peace my dear friend...you were the master of your fate, you were the captain of your soul.


Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
--William Ernest Henley

Alvin Aubert: May 2014
     
there is in the illusion of
Time a walkabout that takes
us to the eye of God in the
Word, it is the breath of
of the edge and the de c orum
of the master that flies
easily that marks our
trudging and c hanting
endeavoring to lift life
into per c eption, su c h a
mind that inhibited us
made us beautiful held
us responsible has been
liberated to rejoin its
cosmi c tribe. let us light
a c andle, let us c elebrate
its genius, let us work harder
at walking in the light
to someday meet him again

Chezia Thompson(Cager) Strand

What a lovely tribute. I met Alvin and Bernadine back in the early 70's when they were at Fredonia and I lived in Buffalo. They were like family and we enjoyed many holidays and special events. When my family moved to Detroit, Michigan, the Auberts moved too and we again enjoyed many meals and celebrations together. What a lovely family... and what a thoughtful scholar, friend, husband and father, This tribute reflects the love and closeness I believe Alvin enjoyed. He will not be forgotten and I am so happy to be a part of his tribute.

First and foremost Alvin was a scholar and a gentleman. He was my cousin and will be greatly missed by many.

My fondest memory of him was when I was a student at Southern U. He was an English professor at Southern U. He would pick me up at my dorm and bring me out to Scotlandville to have dinner with the family. He knew college students were hungry all the time.

His love for his wife and two daughters was evident in his conversations; and all of his interactions with them. You could always see his love for them.