Source Documents for Blog Posts (February – April, 2012)

African American History, African American literature, African Diaspora, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Latinos, American legal system, American politics, ancestors, captured Africans, descendants of slaves, ethnic studies, Middle Passage, slave ships, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

Audio/Visual: “First Time I Saw Big Water” Composed and produced by Bernice Johnson Reagon, performed by Bernice Johnson Reagon and Toshi Reagon for the PBS-WGBH film series Africans in America, Executive Producer, Orlando Bagwell “Betye Saar, National Visionary”: National Visionary Leadership Project: African American History. The video consists of ten interviews in which Ms. Saar personally relates her artistry, family background, professional experiences and influences during a life time dedicated Read More

Why History?

adinkra symbols, African American History, African Diaspora, American legal system, American politics, ethnic studies, slave ships, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

During the past several weeks, board members of the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project have found themselves frequently in conversations with people who suggest that we sustain a more formal educational component, something beyond this blog. One comment was that the United States in particular does not value history or anything in the past. Our people were described as more comfortable in the present or headed into the Read More

Keorapetse Kgositsile and Brenda Marie Osbey at Brown University, April 2011

African American History, African American literature, African Diaspora, African literature, ethnic studies

This spring two premier poets, one from South Africa and one from the United States, exemplified the connection through word art of the Continent and the Americas. We were fortunate enough to obtain Charles Cobb’s introduction of them to the Brown community. A webcast of this historic event was made and if any blog visitor is interested please contact the Department of Africana Studies, Brown University for access. The temptation Read More

It’s the State of the Union

African American History, African American literature, African Diaspora, Afro-Caribbeans

Aime Cesaire, the great Martiniquan poet and statesman, said of the French Surrealist Movement after he discontinued his membership with the organization, “I cannot serve a system that cannot and will not serve me.” Inspired by Langston Hughes, Claude McKay and others of the Harlem Renaissance, he, Cesaire, along with Leopold Senghor of Senegal and French Guianan, Leon Gontron Damas, spearheaded the Negritude Movement while they were students in Paris. Read More

Developing a National and Global Identity

African American History, African American literature, African Diaspora, Afro-Latinos, Central America, descendants of slaves, ethnic studies, Mexican Americans, Mexico, slavery

The previous post, Imagine: From the Black Atlantic to a New World Order, triggered an idea which we would like to continue to explore. First, what image comes to mind when you are asked to envision or describe a person from Ecuador? Brazilian religious practices? Traits of the Mexican persona? Cuban music? The literature of Uruguay or the politics of Columbia? Do any of these reflect an African influence in Read More

Imagine: From the Black Atlantic to a New World Order

African American History, African Diaspora, descendants of slaves, music

Some people ask why this blog dredges up the history of the Middle Passage. What is the point of looking back to a time of such pain and misery, a time when millions of Black people were so systematically abused? Why dwell on such horror? It’s a good question, however; one worth answering from time to time as we try to connect events in the here and now to what Read More

Science/ Fiction?

African American History, African American literature, African Diaspora

Many people state that they do not like to read science fiction, that it is a genre with no appeal. There also is the cliché that life imitates art, and vice versa. How closely now does this society resemble the novel 1984? We would like to turn this on its head and propose that those of us who are involved with the African Diaspora have been a part of science Read More

Limbo

African American History, African Diaspora, Afro-Caribbeans, captured Africans, Middle Passage, slave ships, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

How low can you go? We are talking “limbo.” Is this a dance? A competition? A workout? An historical artifact? Any and all of the above? An essay written by the late French scholar Genevieve Fabre about the limbo recently crossed our radar. We were well aware through research that during the Middle Passage voyage a routine of daily exercise was established by slave traders for captive Africans. Movement, primarily Read More

It’s Like Having No Navel

African American History, African American literature, African Diaspora, ancestors, descendants of slaves, oral history, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

In Toni Morrison’s novel Song of Solomon, one character, Milkman’s aunt Pilate, is described as having no navel, no evidence of connection with a progenitor, no root. That was always an unimaginable, impossible image. It grates against all that we know to be human and natural. She went from place to place with a box pierced into her ear containing a clue of the past and  also carried a sack Read More

Life in America: Dangerous and Black

African American History, American legal system, descendants of slaves, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

As social networks and news media have spread the story of the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida, people around the world react with disbelief and outrage. For those of us who are Black in this nation there is outrage, but very little disbelief. This incident is far too real, far too familiar. Just weeks after the shooting of this seventeen year-old, we stated in a previous post, Terminology (March Read More