At the 50th NAACP Image Awards, the NAACP announced its historic “Jamestown to Jamestown” event partnership with Ghana, marking the 400th year enslaved Africans first touched the shores of what would become the United States of America.
An official event of Ghana’s “Year of Return,” Jamestown to Jamestown will allow for NAACP leadership, NAACP members, and members of the African American community to honor both ancestors and the struggle for Black liberation in a groundbreaking trek from Jamestown, Virginia to Jamestown in Accra, Ghana in August of this year.
“Jamestown to Jamestown represents one of the most powerful moments in the history of the Black Experience,” said NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. “We are now able to actualize the healing and collective unity so many generations have worked to achieve in ways which bring power to our communities in America, Africa and throughout our Diaspora.”
The Jamestown to Jamestown events kickoff August 18 in Washington D.C., where participants will travel via bus to Jamestown, Virginia for a prayer vigil and candle- ighting ceremony marking the African “Maafa,” a term describing the horrific suffering embedded in the past four centuries related to the enslavement process.
Participants will then travel back to DC for a gathering at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (which was designed by Ghanaian architect Sir David Adjaye) prior to departing to Ghana on a direct flight for 7 to 10 days of cultural, spiritual and cathartic experiences designed to connect the present to the African past.
Some trip events include:
• Prayer Vigil at Jamestown, VA Settlement
• Direct Chartered Flight to Ghana from Washington, DC
• Ancestral Healing Ceremony at Jamestown, Accra
• Business, Investment & Development Summit
• Black Tie Gala
• AfricanAncestry.com DNA Reveal Ceremony
• Cape Coast and Elmina Castle Visit
• Assin Manso Last Bath Slave River
• Akwasidae Festival @ Manhyia Palace in Kumasi
To learn more about Jamestown to Jamestown, visit: jamestown2jamestown.com
To learn more about The Year of Return, visit: http://www.yearofreturn.com
Source: article via goodblacknews.org
7 Comments
WOW!
Great event, I would love to play a leading role
Oh I applaud the commemoration, however, there are several very important issues to be clarified.
1. The First Africans to arrive in 1619 did not come to Jamestown, they arrived at Point Comfort wthis is now Hampton, Virginia.
2. They were never enslaved. They were captured and headed to slavery in Mexico, however, by twist of fate they needed up in Virginia which did not have slave laws until 1661. 42 years after they arrived. The first Ancestors earned their Freedom as indentured servants and their ancestors live on today as free people. 400 years later. Please refer to project1619.org to verify these truths.
Also, over twenty years before Jamestown, there was a failed Spanish colony near the Pee Dee river in South Carolina that brought Africans over to work. Not treated well by the Spanish, the Africans set fire to the place, and many ran away to live among the indiginous people. As wonderful as it is for Ghana to extend that invite, don’t believe that “passive slave” hype they try to feed us.
Also, please be careful of who you give your DNA to. Ensure that that are not the ‘owner’ of if after the test and be sure to read the small print.!!!!
Thank you brother Soule and brother William for continuing to shine the light. I don’t know if it’s that we are so invested in celebrating, or we simply don’t really care about the history. Perhaps we just can’t get out of our own way. While I commend the reunifications and connections being made under this banner, there is a destructive element to the canonization of 1619 in our history despite its relative insignificance to Black history. We need to begin any discussion of the first Africans to come to these Shores with the first Africans to come to these shores, who were not enslaved and they came hundreds of years in regular trade routes before Europe discovered this part of the world; not to mention the settlements of Africans that go back thousands of years. When you begin your history with slavery, anything will seem to be progress!
Meant ensure we are the owner of it after we have the results.