PRAYER: Tersha Makwiya

My soul preached to me and said, "Do not be delighted because of praise, and do not be distressed because  of blame."

Ere my soul counseled me, I doubted the worth of my work.

Now I realize that the trees blossom in Spring and bear fruit in Summer without seeking praise; and they drop their leaves in Autumn and become naked in Winter without fearing blame. ~ Kahlil Gibran, poet 

Tersha Makwiya by Leah Hawker

Put it like this

What are your professional ambitions: Becoming a successful businesswoman, owning a successful modelling agency, and a lingerie boutique.

Turn-ons: Clean fingers. He must be an ambitious guy and he must be able to bring out the crazy, fun side of me.

Three things I can’t live without: My phone, gloss, and a bible.

My biggest fear is: Losing my parents.

Get me a plane ticket to: New York City.

Happiness is: Always wearing a happy smile on your face.

Favourite quote: Dare to succeed. Embrace your inner well-being.

Playboy South Africa May 2013

Concept, production, photography and digital imaging:

Leah Hawker

Tersha Makwiya

Dick Gregory and I had seen the same play a few years ago. It was a riveting one written and developed and starring the pastor of a rather progressive Black church in Forestville, Maryland. Between the two of us we'd probably seen the play seven times. 

It isn't a surprise to see Dick Gregory walking around Washington DC. This time it was Lafayette Park across the street from the White House we recognized each other and fell into a lengthy conversation. The activist and I shared some personal insights and things with each other, but I was listening more than talking. It is what you do in an elder's presence.

Of the things Dick Gregory mentioned was the number and names of newspapers he read every single day cover to cover. In fact it was late afternoon, and in his left hand were newspapers, a writing pad, and a book. He was casual in a suit jacket and his hands animated making his talking points about why it is important to read at this level, and what he had uncovered recently. The analysis and the mathematical abilities employed are invaluable. It might seem to many I, or another are over-dramatizing the importance of reading and analyzing, but the practice separates sheep (the weak) from the strong. It is and continues to be a determining facet of a free mind. Writing is a natural consequence of learned behavior and was integral to the patriarchs of the Bible. Why isn't it as important to latter day Christians, or the secular world in these United States? - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 11.19.13

South African Playmate

Playboy South Africa

It is not the norm to feature African women in the elegant style of Playboy. It is mostly the playground for the white women. Their appeal sales the concept, and the color is the color. Like any man Playboy has been an influence upon my thinking and a challenge to my beliefs. Playboy's founder, Hugh Hefner has reshaped women's freedoms, influenced the Civil Rights movement, and changed people's relationship with themselves, sex, and the human body. The writing staff is exceptional. The magazine's enormous impact upon American and global thought came by way of the interviews they published over the decades of people important to the social changes of the world.

I am reading the Playboy interview of actor, Samuel L. Jackson, now. It is eye opening. Jackson is as I thought: a profound man. Check this interview out: http://www.playboy.co.za/samuel-l-jackson/

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 11.18.13

Samuel L. Jackson, actor

PLAYBOY: Living in a segregated environment, what were some other useful survival tools your family gave you?
JACKSON: There were certain things you necessarily had to be told as a child – things that would keep you alive and out of harm’s way. My family would point out this or that person as a Klansman or a grand wizard and tell me who specifically those men had killed and gotten away with it just because they’d said that black person was doing this or that. You could not look suspicious, because when people can accuse you of anything, there’s nothing you can say. They’d tell me not to get in a car with this or that policeman, saying, “I don’t care what happens, you run and run till you get here, and then we’ll deal with it here.”

PLAYBOY: Did movie-going influence your eventual decision to become an actor?
JACKSON: Before we even had a television, I listened to a lot of radio drama as a kid, hearing how people’s voices can tell stories. Every Saturday I spent all day in one of Chattanooga’s two black theaters, the Liberty and the Grand, seeing Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Lash LaRue, Westerns, Creature From  the Black Lagoon, Francis the Talking Mule.  Books had more to offer than movies. My mom’s rule was that for every five comic books I read, I had to read a classic. I read Shakespeare and Beowulf while other kids were learning how to diagram sentences and learning to conjugate so they could fill out job applications. My fantasies weren’t inspired by John Wayne but by Jules Verne’s 20,000  Leagues Under the Sea and Dumas’s The Three Musketeers. When I was in the room by myself reading, I would stand in front of the mirror pretending to be all those people in the books. I was acting for myself before I ever did it for anybody else.

PLAYBOY: Because of your involvement in the protest at school you were convicted for unlawful confinement. What did your family think of your evolving politics and budding involvement with the black power movement?
JACKSON: They actually got my militancy. They just didn’t want me to get killed running around, chanting with my fists in the air. But I was in Atlanta doing that anyway. One time, I had come home from school to Tennessee. From the time I was an infant, my grandmother had been buying all these bullshit life insurance and burial policies, and every week this insurance guy, Mr Venable, came to collect his nickel premiums. I had my hair braided and was sitting on the porch, and he walked up and said, “Hi, Sam, is Pearl here?” I said, “Motherfucker, why you calling my grandmother, a woman three times your age, Pearl?” I was cursing and yelling, babbling at him, and before I knew it, my grandmother was out the door and had me  by the hair, going, “What the hell is wrong with you?” It was the first time in his life Mr Venable thought he might have been wrong, and he felt bad, saying, “I don’t call anybody else older than me by their first name.” But my grandmother kicked my ass after he left. She still thought that he was going to call somebody and have me hanged.




Tersha Makwiya by Leah Hawker
Nov. 14, 2013


Tersha Makwiya - Playboy Playmate May 2013 is stunning, and probably has a lot going for her. But, she like others have decided to launch into nudity. Her reasons are hers. Always interested in why I would ask of her if I could.  Choices made reveal so much about us to us. www.playboy.co.za/playmates/tersha-makwiya/