Maafa
Commemoration 22
By Wanda Sabir
What I loved this year was all the celebratory dancing from just before our
ancestors crossed into the unknown territory to landing on these shores and
celebrating life and the possibility of freedom which remained physically just
beyond reach for centuries.
In small steps as we regained agency over ourselves, even if our bodies then and
now continue to be exploited, liberation was a bit sweeter.
Dancers leaped into the air as if to fly home to the ancestors along the West
Coast of Africa where so many were detained in conditions too horrible to
imagine, yet we must imagine and remember to heal from a trauma—the MAAFA which
continues to haunt our gene pools. At the beach that morning Brother Clint,
Sister Lola, Brother Kwalin and Lady Sunrise led the primal cry, a sound pulled
from within, from the depths – the moan where we felt multiple aches, bruises
bandaged were uncovered, the sores aired, the blood allowed to drip into the
sand.
Even our sorrow is beautiful.
For the first time in the 22 year commemoration the people danced the Wolosodon
as drummers evoked the energies of those gone before. It was beautiful watching
both adults and children, young and old, prepare for the journey as our
ancestors did. Jazz began at the dungeon
site and the improvisational dance that is black life continues to shape the
landscapes we terry on briefly before legislated elsewhere.
It is difficult to be black in America, perhaps elsewhere too, but we have our
ancestors— black deities and angels who not only have a say but control what is
unseen. This is where true power lies, so we danced for those spirits whose
lives cycle or course through our veins born and yet to be born, present that
morning, present always—no further away than a libation or call.
We danced the wolosodon along the path leading to the
Doors of No Return and
Dundunba
– the
Ritual of Forgiveness where we released those burdens we no longer
felt necessary to carry any further. With each rose petal we filled a hole and
dropped the items inside and then covered the hole so that none would escape to
re-infect our aura.
“Dance of the Warriors” when we made it through the horrific sea journey
to shore. Later that morning we learned how to channel our energies into
fearlessness – Mu-I –a martial arts form based in Maat led by Zochi. Mu-I followed the
Fleet Week ended that day, a day honoring war.
We honored peace. Those people on the beach who were not invited
respected our ceremony, inquiring afterward of Brother Clint, how it went.
(Last year someone called the police who told us the use of amplification on
the beach was not permitted. This year we were finished before the park ranger
trucks came through.)
There were many obstacles in the way this year most of them on the road to the
beach where the waves were mighty. Both
sun and moon were in the sky together Sunday morning witness to the four heart
shaped Mylar balloons guests released from the circle – I just hope no bird
choked on the remains of the offering.
Theo had a flat tire on the Bay Bridge while Brotha Clint ran into a horrific
car accident en route from Vallejo. Sister
Taliba whom I met at the world premiere of Donald Lacy’s film,
Hidden Treasure earlier that week, lost
all her keys and had to leave her car in Oakland and hire a locksmith to get
into her home.
I was still at the beach at 2 p.m. when she called and I went back to look for
red rose petals where she might have buried her keys during the
Ritual of Forgiveness. I kept finding
blue items—a blue sliver of wood, a bottle cap with a bare foot on it, a piece
of a label wrapper for bottled water, but no rose petals anywhere.
For the second year in a row, the Black Women’s Media Project, Sacred Space and
the Health and Human Resources Center chartered a bus for East Bay pilgrims and
this year they numbered about 40-50. Once again there were many first timers. Big
ups to Colette Winlock, Lola Haneef, Lady Sunrise, Brenda Byes and their team
members.
During the talk back, ritual attendees spoke of how they measured their year
from October to October. We will have to get them to join us for the June
Libations for the Ancestors in Oakland too. The Second Saturday in June at 9
a.m. (PST) is the International Libation for the Ancestors. It is a global
libation:
remembertheancestors.com
lists all the places where libations take place.
Facebook.com/remembertheancestors
Brother Neter Aa Meri erected his ancestor altar, a masterpiece as usual;
however, this year I also made a community altar which grew as one brother
placed a candle from Ethiopia, sisters put candy and other items for Yemanja. I
had candy and bubbles for Esu Legba. I liked the idea Dhameera Ahmad’s family introduced
at her funeral to blow bubbles for the ancestors.
I haven’t figured where to put the bubbles as a group activity.
We remembered the three Iyas or community mothers who made their transitions
this year: Queen Mother Makinya Sibeko Kouate, Hajja Dhameera Ahmad, Iya
Jacquelyn Hadiah McLeod. Another person
the community mourns is Baba Dick Gregory.
That morning as I drove behind the slow 5 McAllister bus, I was thinking
about Hubert Collins (d. Dec. 2016), my dear friend who would always show us
when called with his camera and then make me these lovely albums.
My first cousin Kevin Clark (58) died that week in New Orleans. He was my Uncle
Arthur’s son. New Orleans was spared Hurricane Nate’s fury, but Gulfport was
not. Mobile and Biloxi were Nate
touched
down suffered major flooding. I have people these places too.
I was also thinking about Great Aunt Olivia Samaiyah Beyah Bailey (d. Jan.
2017), who at 98 was not about to live in a world with Trump as its leader. She
literally “dropped the mic.”
We poured libations for those impacted by the California wildfires and those in
Mexico who died in the earthquakes and for the many affected by Hurricanes Harvey,
Irma, Jose . . . then Marie, especially those in Puerto Rico and Dominica and
the Virgin Islands. Just up to
Sept.
30 there were over 15 tropical storms that turned into hurricanes.
September 30, 13 named storms,
eight hurricanes, and five major (Category 3 or stronger) hurricanes had formed in the 2017 Atlantic
hurricane season. This is an historic hurricane season.
Presently Bay Area air quality is impacted by the raging fires burning in Napa,
Sonoma, San Rafael, Yuba City, Ukiah. 100,000 acres burn, 1000s are displaced,
there are deaths. Here is a link to
updated news coverage at
SFGate.com
and
LATimes.
We had people at the commemoration from
Redwood City, Sacramento, Antioch, Vallejo, Richmond, San Francisco, Oakland. There were many who were planning to come and
sent poems instead like Sister Makeda who sent Sterling Brown’s
Strong Men
read by Karla Brundage.
There were many people present for the first time like Thomas Simpson, AfroSolo
founder. Don’t miss his program, Oct. 19-20. Visit afrosolo.org I was so happy to see Dr. Gail Myers, Freedom
Farmers Market, a sister who is lifting up black agarian culture, the literal Roots
Culture colonized in city states. She is
hosting a program at AAMLO, Friday, Oct. 13, honoring the legacy of
Dr.
George Washington Carver called Circling
Back. The free program beginning at 6 p.m.-8 p.m. will feature films
about black farmers, a panel, and poetry.
We forget black people are the original migrant farmworkers, they called us
sharecroppers then, but there was nothing shared. Exploited black folks
swindled out of land and livelihood ended up in barren cities where they grew
Victory Gardens when the war made such shows of patriotism fashionable. But
even before this black folk were growing food so they could eat, they were
growing food so the kids could stay well, families could stay well, ‘cause there
were no medical plans, just burial policies.
Black people’s labor didn’t just build this country, we also fed it and made it
fat.
Dr. Myers brought along her friend, Alice Walker. I was so happy to see Ms.
Walker. I remembered the semester she was the topic of my freshman comp class.
We read the biography, hot off the presses:
Alice
Walker, A Life. We also read
The Color Purple and went on a field
trip to see the musical starring Oakland born and raised, Latoya London. We
also went to see the stage adaptation of Toni Morrison’s
Bluest Eye at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. It was directed by
Stanley F. Williams. Both are stories about
black girls. Morrison’s story is a bit
more tragic. The lesson is the same: black girls are at risk and we have to pay
attention and keep our girls safe.
A student who also loved her work and I followed Alice Walker to
Whole Earth Expo from our Alameda
classroom to San Francisco where she spoke and signed books. I wanted my protégé to meet her. I remember when I saw Ms. Walker at the
Howard Zinn event where famous writers, historians and activists read from his
Voices of a People’s History of the US. Alice Walker, his former student, was one of
the participants. After she read, I was seated with a couple of VIPs, Marina
Drummer and Robert H. King, so I went to the reception with them. (The event
was at King Middle School, the school my daughter TaSin graduated from).
In any case, Ms. Walker was excited and asked me if I had a copy of her latest
book,
We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting
For. When I told her no, she then took a copy from the basket her assistant
was carrying and gave me one. I made
that book my textbook for the next couple of years. I kept following her to La
Peña when she was a part of an event for the Cuban 5 at a book release:
Letters of Love & Hope: The Story of the
Cuban Five Paperback by author, Nancy Morejon, editor, Alice Walker.
I also saw her again at a wonderful film screening about the literacy campaign
President Fidel Castro, her friend launched.
This was before Kennedy attacked the island during a battle called, The
Bay of Pigs. I saw her at the Museum of the African Disapora (MoAD) when she
was in conversation with the author of
Lose
Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route by Saidiya Hartman. I
would have an entirely different view of the book after leaving Elmina City with
Imahkus Njinga Okofu,
One Africa. According to her, the
book is a distortion of the legacy of African American who live in Ghana. She
shared a letter she who outlining the inaccuracies.
I saw Ms. Walker again at Laney College in the audience at a Playback Theatre
event. One of my students at that time who was a part of the professional
troupe, invited me to attend.
I have a photo of Ms. Walker in my bedroom – yep. Can’t make this stuff up
(smile). I am a super groupie – from
Temple
of My Familiar onward, but she
would never notice. I hope. Her partner
would recognize me and smile after I introduced myself to him the first time at
MoAD.
I am fine admiring her legacy from a distance.
Seeing her Sunday, October 8, is an opportunity to write all these
things down that I have been holding (smile).
Perhaps the most special time I was able to see her was at the African American
Art and Culture Complex when there was a program for the Californian Coalition
for Women Prisoners (CCWP) when Hamdiya Cooks was the director. Hamdiya said
that Ms. Walker had her over to tea when she was released from prison. I think Hamdiya shared that story when she
introduced Ms. Walker.
All her life Alice Walker has been showing up.
She showed up at Dr. King’s funeral and a week later lost the baby she
was carrying along with her will to live. However, she soon shook herself from
the apathy and continued the work King had inspired her to start.
A few years ago, her friend Jacquelyn Hairston composed a libretto to her poem,
“Why Peace is Always a Good Idea.” It
was performed at AfroSolo and Alice Walker read the poem at a concert preview
at the Burial Clay theatre. The AfroSolo event August 2011 was prelude to the Carnegie
Hall performance in Feb. 19, 2012—Hairston’s conductor debut with a 300 voice
choir. She returned again in 2016.
Maafa 2017-2020
Back at the beach, the waves were high and when I finally went to offer prayers
to the ancestors, I was caught unaware by a waves which soaked my shoes, not
once but twice. Hassaun who’d walked with me there, said, “the ancestors want
your attention.” Well they certainly got
it. I am still focused on the ancestors and have begun to think about next
year.
We are inching towards 2019 which marks the
400th
anniversary of the first Africans to set foot on English American soil in indentured
servitude. While white people also served
as indentured servants, their servitude had a terminus, black people would be
held indefinitely.
There is a bill: H.R.1242 - 400 Years of African-American History Commission
Act which passed the House in May 2016, but did not pass the Senate to date. Everyone should lobby the Senate to adopt and
pass the bill so the resources become available to those of us doing the ancestor
commemoration work.
(Sec. 3) This bill establishes the 400 Years of
African-American History Commission to develop and carry out activities
throughout the United States to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the
arrival of Africans in the English colonies at Point Comfort, Virginia, in
1619.
