Black history celebration to be busy in New Orleans

10th February 2014   ·   0 Comments

By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor

Black History Month is under way and in a town that has been called “the most African city in America,” there are a myriad of ways local groups are marking the occasion. Local schools, libraries, cultural centers and organizations are all presenting programming to residents that spark dialogue about Black history and culture. The full slate of activities also gives people in the community an opportunity to come together and talk about the state of Black New Orleans.

“New Orleans isn’t just a great place to party with amazing food and music,” Ramessu Merriamen Ana, a New Orleans businessman and former congressional candidate, told The Louisiana Weekly Tuesday. “This is a major reservoir of African history and culture.”

Aha said that in addition to being a major tourist destination, the Crescent City is the birthplace of jazz and the Faubourg Tremé, one of the oldest Black communities in the United States.

“Whether we acknowledge it or not, Black history is everywhere in this city,” Aha said. “New Orleans was also home to the 1811 slave revolt, the largest uprising of enslaved Africans in U.S. history, and was also the last city the great Marcus Garvey visited before being deported from the United States. There’s not a place you can go in this city that wasn’t influenced by African history and culture. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was founded in uptown New Orleans at New Zion Baptist Church and the Buffalo Solders have historical ties to New Orleans. Tulane University was built with wealth accumulated from the toil of Black slaves and used those slaves to actually build the campus as well.

“The 2004 murder of Levon Jones at Razzoo Bar & Patio in the French Quarter and the many examples of racial profiling and discrimination in that part of town make more sense when you consider the fact that after the 1811 slave revolt, trials of the captured slaves were held in the Cabildo and the severed heads of slaves that were captured were placed on pikes along the Mississippi River and in Jackson Square.”

Clarence Becknell, a proud member and historian of the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club and the local Buffalo Soldiers-association, said Tuesday that the 9th Cavalry of the famed group of Black soldiers was formed in Greenville, La., or what is now the Audubon Park area. “This history is right under our noses but many of us don’t take the time to learn it,” Becknell said.

History abounds in the Greater New Orleans area, from Congo Square, a gathering place for enslaved Africans that kept African music and dance traditions alive, to the gravesites of fallen Black soldiers at the Chalmette Battlefield, Xavier University, which once provided refuge for the Freedom Riders after they were attacked by racists in Alabama, to the intersection of Press and Royal streets, site of the arrest of Homer Plessy, who challenged public segregation in New Orleans.

There is also history reflecting the legacy of oppression and domestic white terrorism in the form of Jackson Square, named for former President Andrew Jackson who suggested that the government give blankets used by smallpox patients to exterminate Native Americans; Lee Circle and Robert E. Lee Blvd., both of which are named for the Confederate general; Jefferson Davis Pkwy,., which is named for the president of the Confederacy; Claiborne Ave., which is named for ambitious politician and former Louisiana governor who used the 1811 slave revolt to push Louisiana into accepting statehood in the U.S.; City Hall, where the Rev. Avery C. Alexander was famously dragged up the stairs for daring to challenge segregation at City Hall; and the Liberty Monument, a monument to southern white hegemony and white supremacy that is located near the Aquarium of the Americas.

Ramessu Merriamen Aha suggested that those who want to gain a better understanding of the city’s Black history visit the Amistad Research Center at Tulane Univ­ersity, St. Augustine Church, the African American Resource Center in the main branch of the New Orleans Public Library and the Historic New Orleans Collection. He also suggested visiting the historic and art collections at Southern University at New Orleans, Dillard and Xavier University.

He encourages locals to open their eyes and visit Black historical sites in New Orleans like the slave tombs at St. Augustine Church in Tremé, Mahalia Jackson’s tomb on Airline Highway and the old site of Flint-Goodridge Hospital.

For reading material about the history of Black New Orleans, one might consider reading Africans in Colonial Louisiana by Gwen Midlo Hall, The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square by Ned Sublette, Black Rage in New Orleans: Police Brutality and African-American Activism from World War II to Hurricane Katrina by Leonard N. Moore, Black New Orleans:1860-1889 by John W. Blessingame, The Free People of Color of New Orleans: An Introduction by Mary Gehman, We as Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson by Keith Medley, A More Noble Cause: A.P. Tureaud and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Louisiana by A.P. Tureaud Jr. and Rachel Emanuel, and Congo Square:African Roots in New Orleans by Freddi Williams Evans.

Ramessu Merriamen Aha recommended a number of books that shed light on the Black experience including The Isis Papers by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, Afro­centricity by Molefi Kete Asante, The Black Man of the Nile and His Family by Yosef ben-Jochanan and Two Thousand Seasons by Ayi Kwei Armah.

On Wednesday, February 19, the Xavier University Department of Music will present an African-American Music Festival. The festival will take place at 7:00 p.m. in the St. Katharine Drexel Chapel and is free and open to the public.

On February 20, Xavier University will present author/act­ivist Sister Souljah at 7:00 p.m. in the Administration Auditorium. There is no admission charge. Sister Souljah is the author of The Coldest Winter Ever, No Dis­respect, Midnight and Deeper Love Inside.

Throughout the month of February, SUNO is presenting a wide spectrum of events aimed at raising residents’ consciousness and appreciation of Black history and culture. Among those events will be a lecture on Monday, Feb. 17, by W.C. Johnson and Bro. Johnny at 11:30 a.m. in Room 102 of the Information Technology Center on its Lake Campus.

Other notable events at SUNO include a February 12 screening of the film Malcom X 11:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., in the Multi-Purpose Room of the Leonard S. Washington Library on SUNO’s Park Campus; Feb. 21 lecture titled “Who are the Moors: Civil Rights & Human Rights” that is sponsored by Moorish Science Temple No. 34 (represented by Bro. Zachary Gremillion-El) and will take place at noon in Room 102 of the Information Technology Center; and a February 26 Cele­bration of Black History Month that features the Voices of SUNO, a performance by Luther Gray/­Bam­­boula 2000 and address by keynote speaker Bro. Willie Muhammad at 11:00 a.m. in the SUNO gymnasium on the Park Campus. The them for the keynote address is “There IS Hope for Black Males.” For a full listing of SUNO’s Black History Month schedule, visit. www.suno.edu.

Ashé Cultural Arts Center, 1712 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd., is currently hosting a series of events that highlight Black history and culture including an exhibit titled “The African Presence In Mexico, an educational panel display based on the most comprehensive project ever organized about African contributions to Mexican culture which runs through the end of the month; A February 21 film viewing of “The Trials of Muhammad Ali” at 6:00 p.m.; and a February 11-12 presentation of “Taken,” a dance performance with matinees at 10:00 a.m. For more info ration about Ashé’s offerings, visit www.ashecac.org.

W.C. Johnson, a member of Community for Change and host of local cable-access show “OurStory,” pointed to the observations made by two well-respected Black historians, Dr. Carter G. Woodson and George G.M. James, author of Stolen Legacy, when asked abut the usefulness and importance of Black history as a tool to emancipate people of African from mental slavery.

“Dr. Woodson said it best; “…If you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told: and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.”

“In the book BlackWorld/Evo­lution to Revolution, Prince Justice addresses the New Orleans dilemma this way; ‘…The conference speaker made it clear that unless the Blackworld is educated and made aware of its true character, the Black race would continue to be the most socio-economically deprived, arrested and murdered race. This is not God’s fault, but the loss of the true character of the Blackworld, which had been bestowed upon them by nature. The Black Movement appears to be stumbling and some say the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks upon the World Trade Center, in New York…changed the world. But even so, where does the Black­world stand? Alone, as many African Americans felt and learned during the New Orleans hurricane… If Black people don’t know where they stand, or stand for anything, they will fall for everything. It does not suffice to only characterize the present Blackworld, since it will only result in a temporary cure of the present problem and the Black Movement would stop once it reaches the next barrier.’

“Clearly Prince Justice, sitting in his London home, has captured the essence of New Orleans’ Black plague: ignorance,” Johnson ad­ded. “The plague that has cost Black New Orleans a city as well as a proud people. Ignorance is what destroys a people and its birthright. The fewer events that celebrate one’s existence, the less profound the threat to the establishment. The ruling minority is responsible for the ailing majority. The ailing majority is responsible for the continued oppression and suppression. Not to celebrate yourself is to ignore yourself and deny your existence.”

This article originally published in the February 10, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.