15th Annual New Orleans, La, MAAFA Commemoration, (hosted by Aché Cultural Arts Center)

The NOLA Maafa Commemoration (hosted by Aché) was marvelous! It was huge and from the program at Congo Square to the march to the river where we visited Crime Scenes (historic sited with monuments which need to be take down), the momentum just grew. The elders and disabled were in vehicles, police blocked traffic, people saluted the ancestors from their windows and balconies, tooted their horns and pulled out cameras to document the ancestral commemoration procession.

At Congo Square the ceremony began at 7 AM. When I arrived about 6:45 the space was filling. We listened to live kora music performed by Morikeba Kouyate, Kora Konnection. It was ethereal and fit the wonder such rituals invoke. Sage and other herbs burned as the space was cleansed and the energy cleared. A simple, yet huge shrine was erected -- chairs faced the shrine and mic stands.

The ceremony opened with a history of Congo Square and NOLA (Freddi W. Evans, Author, Congo Square), followed by libations and prayers (Shkt. Hrimgalah, Ausar Auset Society, SW Region; Fr. Maurice Nutt, Xavier University Office of Black Catholic Studies), talks about black heritage, including black Indians (Chief Warhorse, Choctaw Nation). There were special guests like President Obama's Washington Fellowship or Young African Leaders,  who are studying at Xavier University this summer and a wonderful young women step group who performed. The latter group of Pan African youth spoke and taught us a greeting in their native tongue. The young woman from Nigeria, knelt and touch the ground. Many, if not all, said this ceremony, especially the white attire, reminded them of home.

A high point was when the Nubian Messengers Collective from Brooklyn performed, but the energy rose and when Zion Trinity and Kamau Phillips blessed the space with another libation, many folks from the wings danced into the center of the gathering and raised the spirits in a collective Ashay!
Quess, Black Youth Project, told a wonderful story about his grandmother and later at Gen. Lee's statue raised the energy at the flag burning (smile).

Brother Luther Gray and Wood hosted. Sister Carole Bebelle (co-founder and director, Aché Cultural Arts Center) gave a short talk about love, with an admonishment to be about the work of healing our communities, that love is action. I was seated next to her and two elders, the elder behind me was ninety-one. The age range was great-- babes in arms to ninety one-- Awesome! There were lots of youth too who were active participants. I loved the libations and poetry and music all mixed up together. The drummers from Brooklyn were also great! They had people up and moving (smile).

There was even a place in the program for the Coalition for the Commemoration of African Ancestors of the Middle Passage (ICCAAMP) to speak. Brother Theodore Lush and I were present. I spoke and gave everyone the website address -- RemembertheAncestors.com  Several people came up to me afterward from California and elsewhere to find out more. This was really exciting (smile).

After Chief Warhorse, there was a release of Serenity Peace Doves led by Chief Clarence Delcour, Creole Osceolas and Big Queen Cherise Harrison Nelson, Guardians of the Flame followed by a Spiritual blessings with Heal-hers.

After the final prayer, we lined up and processioned out of the gate into the streets on the march to the River which took us through the French Quarters and a lot of African history. NOLA is certainly a great place to tangibly remember the ancestors. African heritage is everywhere.

People received white carnations for the River Ceremony. They didn't have enough flowers which must mean the ceremony is growing larger.

On the front line there were youth carrying a banner followed by dancers: FiYiYi and N'Fungola Sibo West African Dance Troupe--they were pretty awesome (smile). The drummers and other musicians filled in right after them and then the rest of us filled in the body. Some people had umbrellas --lace umbrella too, still others had hats . . . It was pretty hot. The elders and those who needed a lift rode in cars and vans or cycled transport.

One of the dancers waved the Pan African red, black and green, flag. When stopped at a Crime Scene, like that of businesses which traded in black flesh or at the statue of the man responsible for importing more black Africans into this country via Brazil, that any other -- locs flying with the flag, the dancer would take the space back with his presence and the flag. He was awesome (smile).Marcus Garvey would certainly have approved, along with Ida B. Wells Barnett, Rosa Parks, General Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Dubois and others (smile). This was a part of the procession I had not expected which I enjoyed the most.

Brother Luther Gray said the history talks were 2015 addition. Locating the Maafa in the cement, granite and asphalt, then situating the story in the symbolic bones of the perpetrators and resisters made the walk in the heat so meaningful. I had to wipe tears and perspiration from my eyes multiple times. Grounding the Commemoration in the physicality of the places made it real in a tangible way for me. I want to walk the route again and see and hear more. Real estate certainly makes the intangible real. One cannot deny the chains, the whips, the bricks forged by black hands, and the continued criminal acts of violence on black souls. Towards the end of the walk, one guide broke down as she shared the story of the slave market just in front of us. These businesses are still open and generating money. We are talking living, unresolved historic trauma that tourists and residents walk buy, sit in to eat without a pause, a libation, a thought about the atrocity. 

I knew we would pass landmarks such as the Tomb of the Unknown Slave at the historic Catholic Church, St. Augustine, where Michaela Harrison sang a beautiful song, while a Mardi Gras Indian Chief stood behind the chains on the altar where red palm oil had been poured. Interpreters shared the history of the places we stopped to pay our respects. Among the places we visited were Cafe Maspero, Slave Exchanges, municipal buildings and other places. Hidden History, LLC led these aspect of the walk. At the River, Denise Lyles-Cook and Oracle shared poetry, we all sang, the Black National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson.

These are our ancestors, this is our story.

After the procession we met at the Robert E. Lee Circle where a Confederate Flag was burned to symbolize the continued annihilation of black personhood. At Huck Finn Restaurant, May 21, 2015, Cyrille Neville's daughter, Liryca Neville and her co-workers' receipt was returned with a racial epitaph written on. Imagine what such does to the digestion and why should black people have to swallow such insults? See http://theadvocate.com/news/12439396-123/an-african-american-lunch-customer-gets

That Friday, July 3, at Xavier University there was a Maafa Ceremony and that Saturday evening, we went to see, Lenwood O. Sloan's Vo-Du MacBeth: A Play about Power in Two Acts, which was also a benefit for Aché Cultural Center. The play was outstanding and featured the musical arrangements of Bill Summers, another NOLA legendary percussionist.

The July 4 weekend is certainly for the African Ancestors of the Middle Passage. That Essence is also happening means people who might not normally be in NOLA are also present. It is too bad that the Essence Festival no longer represents the interests of black NOLA. Less than ten percent of the profits earned touch NOLA's black community before leaving more than one person told me. This is not Black Power Economics. My friend, Malik Rahim told me when we parted after I saw the mural of Albert Woodfox, that he walks through the Super Dome and says a prayer for all the black people who died from government apathy and neglect August 29, 2005, and there after.

I also thought about the graves the building sits on. It was built on an African Burial Ground. There were news articles about Aché 's Maafa Commemoration at the Basin Train Station Museum/Theatre, where we attended the play. I liked the interactive display about Aché Cultural Center as well. Sister Carol Bebelle and Brother Luther Gray have really made black heritage, especially ancestor reverence and art for social change integral to the fabric that is black NOLA. Aché is a keeper of the flame.

We heard stories at these crime scenes talks about Brother Luther spearheading protests at a French Restaurant where chains and whips and black scared bodies served as decor inside, hanging from walls. Black people dined there too. I wondered how anyone could eat there, especially black people. The protest was successful and the artifacts came down.

As we marched, the procession would stop just to celebrate life and blackness on the warm, humid, hot New Orleans Saturday. Drummers played at these injunctions while several people danced on the streets and in the audiences we attracted. We also picked up mourners and celebrants--we mourned the loss and celebrated our victory-- despite the difficulty, we are still here.

After the River Ceremony where there were more tears, poems about black lives cut short through violence and how that shows up in our bodies-- Oracles poem, She Has a Migraine, and another poet, Denise Lyles-Cook, shared a poem about Mama Harriett Tubman. Once again, the moment was full as these women called on our ancestors, giants like Mama Tubman.

There is a beautiful work of art created by a black artist shaped like a house that sits at the River just behind me. 

Watermelon and ice cooled us off a bit afterward. There was even a bit of shade under a few trees. I am so happy there was a bus shuttle back to Congo Square. I didn't know how to walk back (smile) and my phone battery was too low to use the GPS. Sakura Kone, a friend from the Bay who now lives in NOLA invited Theodore and I over to his house to freshen up. Theodore had been on the Megabus all night traveling to NOLA from Montgomery. His bus ran late and he missed the first couple of hours, but he arrived before the procession to the River and I got a chance to meet him and others from Alabama (smile). Montgomery's Maafa Commemoration was the following Sunday, July 12. There were folks from Selma there as well who spoke earlier at Armstrong Park.