Monday, August 17, 2026
Monday, August 10, 2026
MAAFA@30 Presentation
Last year, we presented this overview of the past 30 years to a small group of participants. I later shared the slideshow with others. This is the presentation. Please share your thoughts and answers to the questions via email or text: 510-397-9705 and maafasfbayarea.com@gmail.com
MAAFA SF Bay Area Ancestor Virtual Altar
MAAFA SF Bay Area Fiscal Sponsor is Souljourning for Truth Ministry Inc.
Co-founder
International Coalition for the Commemoration of African Ancestors of the Middle Passage (ICCAAMP)
Wanda’s Picks Article/
Contact information: maafasfbayarea.com@gmail.com
Margaret Walker's poem, "For My People"
Minister Imhotep sings, "I'm Proud that I'm Black."
MAAFA@30 October 2025
We honor Anna Julia Cooper, Ph.D., this year. She was a 19th Century educator, school principal in Washington D.C. and the fourth African American woman in this country to earn a doctorate in 1924. She was 65. Her dissertation at the University of Paris-Sorbonne was written in French and focused on attitudes toward slavery after the Haitian Rebellion (Bates 2015 qtd. in Dawson (womenshistory.org).
She was also born enslaved. So much of her scholarship was lost, because women’s scholarship was and is not valued. A contemporary of W.E.B. Dubois, he took Cooper’s ideas and did not credit her nor did he assist her in getting her work accepted. In an essay, “Anna Julia Cooper on Slavery’s Afterlife: Can International Thought ‘Hear’ Her ‘Muffled’ Voice and Ideas?, published in Toward a History of Women’s International Thought, (2021), eds. Patricia Owens and Katharina Rietzler, the author, Vivian M. May, explores Cooper’s thoughts on post-traumatic slave syndrome as she also shows how Cooper had to struggle even into her 100th year to get a publisher for a project.
Yet, Cooper accomplished a lot, despite her unfavorable reception here and abroad. She is credited with publishing the first work querying “intersectionality,” as a thing. She states that Black women are not fragmented rather holistic so when one measures such a life all its experiences have to be considered to do her justice. She says, “Only the Black woman can say, ‘when and where I enter, in the quiet undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.” In other words, I bring all of myself with me.
I visited Cooper’s house when I was in Washington last year in the fall and the school where she taught, not named after her, rather Frederick Douglass. Just down the street from her home lived another powerful woman, Mary Church Terrell. I was so excited to step on Cooper’s porch where she probably entertained and her nieces and nephews played. Too bad her home is now a private residence. The street where her house sits is named after her and there is a park there too in the cul-de-sac. I was so excited to share physical space with this ancestor. It is beyond words how it feels to be in a space, to touch the earth, buildings walls and other surfaces an ancestor walked on too, cooked food on too, rested there too. Cooper’s famous book is A Voice from the South, by a Black Woman of the South. For more on Cooper’s life visit https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/cooper-a-voice-from-the-south.htm
I’d like to read the article and discuss Dr. Cooper’s life and her extraordinary work despite the challenges she faced as a Black woman, widowed, raising her brother’s children and refusing to be bowed by sexist, racist, biased and dangerous circumstances for a free educated independent Black woman in America.
Questionnaire
Name _____________________________________
Email _____________________________________
Address_____________________________________
Phone number ____________________________
Website________________________________
Mailing Address _____________________________
MAAFA SF Bay Area needs a person with fundraising skills, technical support-- web design, outreach; a liaison, assistant to the CEO, audience development, researcher, publisher, a vehicle--car, van, camper, property-- live work, commercial, a gallery.
You can also record a message here: 510-397-9705
1) How many Maafa Commemoration Rituals and other programs have you attended?
2) Why did you come?
3) List 3-4 elements which were most meaningful to you and why
4) Will you return and bring others next year?
5) How would you like to be involved in Maafa-related activities during Maafa Awareness Month (October) and throughout the year? What expertise or skills would you like to share?
6) Profession/Skills
7) Anything else?
Return Questionnaire to: maafasfbayarea.com@gmail.com
Donations can be sent to the organization via Zelle:
Donations can be sent to the organization via Zelle:
Monday, November 10, 2025
Delilah Beasley Presente! California Sutter's Fort Historic Museum
Delilah L. Beasley's work as a historian is unmatched and her work as a journalist is equally remarkable. Her Negro Trailblazers in California, a book completed with her own resources, is notable because Beasley often knew the people she researched personally. Though not a California native, she was born on the date California became a state in the Union, Sept. 9, 1867, in Cincinnati, Ohio. She lived here until her untimely death on August 18, 1934, in San Leandro.
Her research on California's history of slavery which is available in The Journal of Negro History is also unparalleled and unprecedented. It shows that California allowed slavery within its borders, except when challenged in court. Also, slavery in this state is documented before 1619. The paper is available as is her historic book.
Articles written by Beasley in her weekly "Activities Among Negroes by Delilah L. Beasley," Oakland Tribune column.
Sunday, November 9, 2025
Saturday, November 8, 2025
MAAFA@2000: An Interview with Organizers
Interview with MAAFA West Committee re: the Third Annual Maafa Commemoration San Francisco Bay Area
MAAFA@30 Films
Third Annual Maafa Commemoration San Francisco Bay Area
2019 400th Anniversary of African American History
Sunday, October 12, 2025
Friday, October 10, 2025
Items requested for Community Altar
"Celebrating our spiritual connection, our wealth our immortality, and our collective elevation with our Ancestors!
Please bring offerings used to communicate, nurture, elevate, nourish, and invigorate the spirits of our ancestors! 🤍🙌🏾"
White Flowers - Vases
Woven Baskets
White cloth large and small pieces
African fabric
White candles (in glass)
Bowls or bottles of fresh drinkable water
Bright colored fruits
Collard greens
Corn
Squash
African Yam
Bitter Kola. (OROGBO)
Kola nuts ( OBI ABATA)
Coconuts
Tobacco
Collared greens
Gin
White Rum
Coffee
Candy
Bubbles
Crayons
Small toys
MONEY
We give thanks to our Community and Our Ancestors.
Any fabric, Baskets Vases will be returned if folks could please mark tape with name 🙏🏽
If you have capacity, bring a dish of cooked white rice with honey in it as an ancestral offering, or any other cooked dish you'd like to bring.
Remember to take your dish home 🙏🏽🤍
"Ọkàn mi lori ilẹ niwaju rẹ"
In response to a question regarding where to purchase African yams and liquor.
"Some items such as, African Yam
Bitter Kola ( orogbo)
Kola Nut ( obi abata )
Can be found at "Man must wak" African Caribbean Market in Oakland.
White Rum can be found at Food 4 Less or and grocery store that sells Alcohol.
Folks may need to look around for cowries but I have a few to bring.
Ms. Wanda to community:
I bought 100 cowrie shells online. They arrive Saturday. I also purchased bubbles. I will bring White flowers for the altar with vases and battery powered candles. I will get a dozen red roses 🌹 for the Ritual of Forgiveness.
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
MAAFA Commemoration San Francisco Bay Area@29 photos by Zochi
MAAFA 2024@Ocean Beach
by Wanda Sabir
The 29th Annual MAAFA Commemoration San Francisco Bay Area met at Ocean Beach, Sunday, October 13. Warm and cloudy with waves as high as tall buildings, we gathered to honor African Ancestors. The 50 or so children and adults gathered felt their Ancestors ethereal embrace as Min. Imhotep and Min. Alicia poured libations and invited us to call their names with our mouths, feet and hands. Birds on the beach lifted their wings in flight moving towards us and flying overhead like African ancestors flew away from plantation fields. Their collective Aṣé! The theme was accountability and as Zochi led us through Mu-i (pronounced moo-ee) we embraced our power from our roots through our crown chakras. Dr. Uzo taught us the Ibo war chant—“Eyinmba” which was also an embodied movement. Our ancestral poet this year was Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) born in Baltimore to free parents. She was a poet, abolitionist, suffragist, educator and freedom fighter who lived in Philadelphia.
"We are more than the worse thing we have suffered. We are more than what our ancestors survived.
"Our ancestors do not want us to be functional. Our ancestors want us to be free."
The drummers were phenomenal, and the section of the program open to reflections was filled with song, poetry, dance and prayers. A special treat were Karamo Susso and Amina Janta, "Amkara Music." They perform at Bissap Baobab in San Francisco, Oct. 20.
People came from as far as Monterey and Sacramento to just up the block. Join us for a Zoom dialogue on adrienne maree brown's article, “Murmations: Love Looks Like Accountability” (Yes! Magazine, 7/25/22): Sunday, Nov. 10, 2-4 pm PT. Register in advance: MaafaSFBayArea.com, 510.397.9705. Here is the MAAFA 2024 program (https://qr1.be/CPFI).
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