I didn’t take notes.
I didn’t record anything.
I simply came to bear witness.
On Saturday morning, July 26, over a hundred of us gathered inside Hooks Hyde Hall at the National Civil Rights Museum to celebrate the life and legacy of Karanja Aidoo Ajanaku, the former executive editor and associate publisher of The Tri-State Defender. He died on July 7 after a battle with liver cancer. He was 70.
The room was full — friends, family, former colleagues, protégés and admirers. A slideshow of Karanja played softly on a screen — images of him in radiant African garb, embracing family, smiling wide with close friends. One photo showed him on a motorcycle, a detail that surprised me. Somehow, I had never imagined Karanja on a bike. And yet … of course. His spirit always rode free.
Many came dressed in African attire, from dashikis to flowing robes — some of them people I’d never seen in African clothing, including longtime friend and fellow journalist Otis Sanford. Afrocentricity wasn’t a dress code. It was a declaration. This was Karanja’s circle — people who knew him, people who’d been shaped by him, people who came to say: We remember him.
The ceremony began with opening remarks by Deidre Malone, vice chair of The Tri-State Defender board and close colleague of Ajanaku’s, who served as mistress of ceremonies.
Otis Sanford spoke first — his voice steady, his words weighted by nearly 50 years of friendship. “You can’t summarize a friendship like that,” he said. “You just can’t.” He didn’t try. But he honored their bond nonetheless, speaking of laughter shared, work endured and the rare closeness they maintained to the very end. Sanford had visited Karanja in the hospital just days before he passed away.
Tennessee Rep. G.A. Hardaway later presented a proclamation honoring Ajanaku’s life and work. He, too, spoke of the intellectual depth and moral clarity Karanja brought to every conversation.
Both Sanford and Hardaway lauded Ajanaku’s groundbreaking 1983 Commercial Appeal series, “Black Mosaic,” which explored the complexity and richness of Memphis’ Black community. Sanford called on the CA to collect the series in book form and publish it. “It was incredible then. It’s still incredible work.” Hardaway noted that further recognition from the Tennessee legislature is forthcoming.
There was a litany — call and response. I wish I had written it down, but I remember its refrain:
“We remember him.”
Friends, family, colleagues, and admirers gather at the National Civil Rights Museum to honor the life and legacy of Karanja Aidoo Ajanaku — journalist, mentor, and truth-teller — in a moving celebration marked by Afrocentric elegance, heartfelt tributes and echoes of the refrain: “We remember him.” (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender) 
Friends, family, colleagues, and admirers gather at the National Civil Rights Museum to honor the life and legacy of Karanja Aidoo Ajanaku — journalist, mentor, and truth-teller — in a moving celebration marked by Afrocentric elegance, heartfelt tributes and echoes of the refrain: “We remember him.” (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender) 
Friends, family, colleagues, and admirers gather at the National Civil Rights Museum to honor the life and legacy of Karanja Aidoo Ajanaku — journalist, mentor, and truth-teller — in a moving celebration marked by Afrocentric elegance, heartfelt tributes and echoes of the refrain: “We remember him.” (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender) 
Friends, family, colleagues, and admirers gather at the National Civil Rights Museum to honor the life and legacy of Karanja Aidoo Ajanaku — journalist, mentor, and truth-teller — in a moving celebration marked by Afrocentric elegance, heartfelt tributes and echoes of the refrain: “We remember him.” (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender) 
Friends, family, colleagues, and admirers gather at the National Civil Rights Museum to honor the life and legacy of Karanja Aidoo Ajanaku — journalist, mentor, and truth-teller — in a moving celebration marked by Afrocentric elegance, heartfelt tributes and echoes of the refrain: “We remember him.” (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender) 
Friends, family, colleagues, and admirers gather at the National Civil Rights Museum to honor the life and legacy of Karanja Aidoo Ajanaku — journalist, mentor, and truth-teller — in a moving celebration marked by Afrocentric elegance, heartfelt tributes and echoes of the refrain: “We remember him.” (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender) 
Friends, family, colleagues, and admirers gather at the National Civil Rights Museum to honor the life and legacy of Karanja Aidoo Ajanaku — journalist, mentor, and truth-teller — in a moving celebration marked by Afrocentric elegance, heartfelt tributes and echoes of the refrain: “We remember him.” (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender) 
Friends, family, colleagues, and admirers gather at the National Civil Rights Museum to honor the life and legacy of Karanja Aidoo Ajanaku — journalist, mentor, and truth-teller — in a moving celebration marked by Afrocentric elegance, heartfelt tributes and echoes of the refrain: “We remember him.” (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender)
The phrase echoed through Hooks Hyde Hall, buoyed by the steady rhythm of the Udu drum. It wasn’t mourning. It was invocation.
Later, Deidre Malone asked those in the audience who had been mentored by Ajanaku to stand. I stood. A third of the room stood with me. It was a quiet, powerful moment. A living ledger of lives changed.
Though it was unmistakably an Afrocentric space, spiritually and visually, the gathering was multiracial, intergenerational and deeply Memphis. That felt fitting, too. Karanja may have centered his work in the Black press, but his impact transcended category.
Near the end, Karanja Ajanaku Jr. took the microphone. Emotional and halting, he shared the weight of loss and love. But then he said something striking.
“My dad was a very private man,” Ajanaku Jr. said. “I’m learning more details about his life these past few weeks that I never knew before.”
Karanja Ajanaku was not difficult to understand. He was committed, intentional, anchored in culture, curious about the world and serious about the responsibility of telling truth, especially in and for the Black community.
And now that he’s gone, we carry the work forward.
Because he taught us. Because he believed in us. Because he showed us.
Because — we remember him.
