I was born on April 9, 1971 to Edna and Elwood Drake Miller, and received my primary and secondary education at the New Center Academy (in the Waldorf tradition), Friends School, and graduated from Holy Redeemer High School in Detroit, Michigan. Shortly thereafter I attended Wayne State University, and was also on scholarship attending Kemetic Studies sponsored by Ipet Isut at the Akwaaba Center. At eighteen years old I received my HIV/AIDS counseling certification and became the youngest HIV/AIDS counselor in the State of Michigan which led to a ten year plus stint at the Detroit Health Department. After that I enjoyed a teaching position at Timbuktu Academy in Detroit, MI and was currently employed at Catholic Social Services as a prevention specialist serving various at-risk communities and mentoring countless youth on and off the job.
Not to sound braggadocious, but I was very active in bringing about social change which included a "Study In" at Wayne State University in 1989 where the outcome produced an African Studies program that is still in effect today. Dedicated to the liberation of Ba-Tu (African people) people at home and abroad, I was a Pan-Afrikanist who focused on cultural redemption and the collective restoration of the African mind, heart, body, and soul which culminated in a physical pilgrimage to the Motherland (Kenya) in the early 1990's where I was initiated into the Gikuyu high culture and became very fluent in the Swahili language. As a poet I was published in the anthology "Pitch Black Poetry" put out by Broadside Press. I was a board member of Kabaz Black Jewels as well as a member of the Plebispsyche study group. I should also mention that I was highly successful as a youth activist and was very involved in every facet of my children's lives as well as all the youth I served over the years. As a contributing member of the Baba's Club, which came out the efforts of fathers whose children attended Nsoroma Institute in Oak Park, Michigan, I was instrumental in addressing societal ills and formulating strategies that could be used to help Black men recapture their 'god-selves.'
On Saturday, February 24, 2007 around 5:15 p.m. shortly after departing the Detroit, Michigan residence of long time friend and preceptor Mfundishi Naba Olazani Olatunji (Sa-Amenti-Ra Mosali ya Nzambi) a barrage of fatal shots were fired at my 1993 Jeep on Wabash and Marquette (South of West Grand Boulevard and West of Rosa Parks by McMichael Middle School) by those whose hearts are overran with violence and souls devoid of the light of THE HOLY AMEN claiming my life at the young age of 35 forcing me to leave behind my four beloved children, Fahd (Bahati) Hassan Abubakhari (9), Edna Leona (Leah) Muthoni (7), Maya Jan Deborah Selassie (5), and Ellyne Irene Wrarimu (2) as well as my soulmate and loving wife Joya Porties-Miller. I am also survived by my mother Edna Lewis White (Cu Cu), father Elwood Drake Miller (Babu), mentor Bennie White-Ethiopia, brother Elliot David Miller and wife Amy, special brother David Houghton and his wife Christi, aunt Deloris Lewis (Shangazi), uncle Arthur L. and aunt Trinita Lewis, their children Justin, and Allison, father in love Vincent Robert Porties (Babu), mother in love Debra Joyce Porties (Yeayu), sisters in love Cicely, Nadalyn (David Isaih), my Kenyan family, CuCu Grace, Gicheru, Sammie, Maggie, Sarah, and Ann and a village of other special family members and brothers and sisters in the Pan-Afrikan movement. After all is said and done, I, Njoma Omi Ya'le Miller was many things to many people.
A man of positive actions and righteous convictions, I lived to serve others, but my first dedication was to amelioration of self, people, community, and culture. It cannot be denied that my actions and deeds greatly impacted many people, particularly the watoto (children), whom held a special place in my heart. While I realize that I will indeed be missed physically by the multitude, know for a surety that the works of my spirit live on in the fecundity that sustains all existence.
Fret not, for as Tehuti (Thoth) exclaimed to the scribe Ani in the Per-em Heru (The Book of the Coming Forth by Day and by Night), "Au-k er heh en heh, aha heh," meaning "Thou art for millions and millions of years, a period of millions of years."
Hence,
I live on forever in the infinite radiance of
THE SELF CREATED.
I am NTRU forevermore…