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Why come to Civil War & Emancipation Day?

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April 7, 2014
Our ancestors are crying out that their living was not in vain.
 
 
Sankofa
 
There are at least two comments to make about history.  Ghana’s Asante tradition teaches through the Adinkra symbol, Sankofa, that we must know where we’ve come from to know where we are going.  It’s like the Universal Law of Polarity, unity is plural at a minimum of two.  In the duality that exists there are two poles, or opposites, of everything.  We can neither recognize nor balance the thing in front  of us if we don’t recognize the thing that is behind.  In this power of transformation, with knowledge and clarity, we can choose a higher frequency vibration for existence in the light, like with cause and effect, or stay low and in darkness while even calling it light.
 
The Great Oracle of Tehuti.
 
Africa is the center of the world, the cradle of civilization.  As such The Motherland contributed to the development of the world in all of the sciences, in economics and mathematics, in social organization, in architecture, in education, in spiritual consciousness, in natural and human resources,  more.  Africans traveled the globe before Columbus to bring the culture and advancements that helped shape our world.  
 
Africans, enslaved and colonized, possessed the same knowledge and skills — 
 
The Empire of Ghana flourished during the dark ages of Western Europe.  By the 15th century, there was a university at Timbuktu.  The Asantes of the Gold Coast and the Yorubas of Nigeria possessed highly organized and complex civilizations long before their territories were brought under British political control. The thesis that Africa is what western European missionaries, traders and administrators have it, is comforting to western Europeans, but invalid.
 
 
 
 
 
So, here’s a second comment:  Know your history lest you are doomed to repeat it.
 
The chattel enslavement of African people represented the most horrific, inhumane, greed-controlled period in history where the effects, as legacy, are clearly evident today.  Willie Lynch is alive and well, self-perpetuated as prophecied, and self-hate shows up projecting inward and outward in our mirrors, our families and our communities.  African people affected by colonialism and enslavement are in disarray and dis-ease; PTSD – post traumatic slavery disorder.  We don’t know the facts of this forced migration, nor do we understand/recognize its legacy.  Enslaved Africans were cut from our root, the source of our strength, taken off our terms, as Molefi Asante is known to say, to be reduced to and objectified as property — no identity, no name, no point of origin, no language, no choice, stay in your place. 
 
We are the children of those who chose to survive.  May the ancestors be pleased.  Many of Africa’s descendents have accomplished as a tribute to the power of heritage.  The crowns we wear have been bought and paid for.  Our lives must be lived at the highest frequency possible as an expression of gratitude. 
 
Many of Africa’s descendents have floundered in the face of disparities, ignorance and confusion that is blind to socioeconomic status or age.  Through various forms of expression and engagement, African Americans search for the elixer of repair and balance.

Either way, the key is knowledge.  Come out and see for yourself how history is revisited.  How can we acknowledge an “Emancipation Day” when we have not fully processed or healed from generations of bondage?  Listen.  Define. Voice.  Each one reach one.
 
After all is said and done Elegba Folklore Society’s tour starts at 6:30p.  You will never be the same.
 
 
OJB & Group
 

Heritage Tours

Elegba Folklore Society’s informing and affirming cultural history tour, In the Beginning… Virginia, Along the Trail of Enslaved Africans is sought after as a not-to-be-missed life experience.  Normally a group tour by reservation, twice in April this program is being offered free for the public.  Walk in our ancestors footsteps in torch light to culminate Civil War & Emancipation Day on Saturday April 12.
 
Join us on the Trail again on April 26.  This time the organizer is the Remembering Slavery, Resistance and Freedom Project.  How should we address the legacies of slavery?  Events and exhibits have, according to the project, been occurring to “commemorate the Sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation by revealing the enormous influence free and enslaved Africans and, later [sic] African-Americans have had on Virginia. While sites related to African-American labor, life, struggle, and resilience are numerous in Virginia, many state residents and visitors are unaware of these sites and the history they represent.”
 
 
From The Book Without Sanctuary
The extraordinary amount of attention and energy expended upon black southerners, Henry M. Turner argued in 1904, argued strongly the charge of black inferiority.
“More laws have been passed by different legislatures of this country, and more official decisions have been delivered and announced against this piece of inferiority called the negro than have been issued against any people since time began.”
“Based on the attempts to keep down the race, Turner concluded, “it would appear that the negro is the greatest man on earth.”

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