CELEBRATING IN NEW YORK CITY JUNE 13-14 - 2015

Celebrating launch of my book "Berbician Griot" at Sisters Uptown Bookstore in New York city on June 13, 2015 and celebrating a change of government in Guyana, South America in Brooklyn, New York City on June 14, 2015.




CELEBRATING CHANGE IN GUYANA

by Murphy Browne ©

Nayshan ah whey yuh Nayshan?

Nayshan ah whey yuh deh?

Nayshan ah whey yuh Nayshan?

Nayshan ah whey dem dey?

All ahwe ah we ah wan genahrayshan!

All ahwe ah we ah wan Congo Nayshan!

All ahwe ah we ah wan Eebo Nayshan!

Excerpt from kwekwe song “Nayshan ah whey yuh Nayshan”, identifying some of the nations from which our ancestors were taken. (Congo, Igbo, Yoruba, Ashanti etc.)

The weekend of June 13-14, 2015 was joyously filled with African music, specifically kwekwe songs and folk songs from Guyana. On Saturday, June 13, some of my Guyanese relatives who live in the USA helped me entertain a gathering at Sisters Uptown Bookstore in New York City. It was like a gathering of the Hughes clan from Berbice, Guyana. The occasion was an introduction of my book “Berbician Griot” to an American audience/readership. Not only did they help with the singing and dancing, but also the translating of Creolese to English for members of the American audience. Kwekwe is sung in Creolese, the language developed by enslaved Africans in Guyana. One American gentlemen who attended was especially intrigued after we translated the lyrics to the kwekwe song, “If me nah bin come yah, me nah bin know ooman ah ded yah fuh mahn!” There was much hilarity in the translating of lyrics. An American audience member wanted a further explanation of why Janey was going to the “backdam” after a translation of “Lang lang time Janey gyal ahwe nah guh backdam Janey, come leh we guh backdam!”

June is “Black Music Month” and kwekwe definitely qualifies as “Black Music.” Kwekwe is a genre of music derived from African culture that survived the Maafa (African holocaust) of the slave trade and enslavement of Africans in Guyana. Kwekwe songs and the accompanying dance moves are performed by African Guyanese the night before a wedding. It is traditional for the relatives and friends of the prospective bridegroom to sing and dance their way to the home of the prospective bride’s family. On arrival at the home of the bride’s family, there would be an enactment of some reluctance from the bride’s family to give up their daughter. The groom and his entourage would sing and eventually be welcomed by the bride’s family. The groom would have to search for the bride with his relatives singing encouragement and when the “reluctant” bride is found, acting coy and shy, there would be more singing, dancing and offering of gifts to encourage her to consider the bridegroom’s suit. Then the evening would become very interesting with songs of advice to the couple from mostly older men and women.

In the 21st century, kwekwe has lost some of its importance as a pre-wedding event for many African Guyanese. One of my relatives who was born in England said that he had attended a kwekwe before our performance on June 13 but did not understand the significance until it was explained on Saturday. Fortunately the kwekwe songs are still well known. They are sung at other times and not confined to a pre-wedding celebration/event. That was the case on Sunday, June 14, 2015 when Guyanese of all backgrounds sang kwekwe songs and folk songs (accompanied by djembe drums) at a massive celebration in Brooklyn, New York. More than 10,000 Guyanese paraded down Church Avenue in Brooklyn from Bedford Avenue along Church Avenue to Schenectady Avenue, where a grand rally was held. Guyanese came out to “represent”, some striding confidently along, some wining skillfully as they walked and even those who needed walking aids came out. The sun was blazing but that did not faze the celebrants. Dressed in green and yellow, some people even used the actual design of the “Golden Arrowhead” in their dress. (trousers, frocks, t-shirts, shorts, blouses etc.) It was a colourful and joyous gathering of thousands. There was a group from Buxton Village, East Coast Demerara, whose t-shirts were emblazoned with a Kiswahili slogan advocating the unity of all Guyanese. Elder Eusi Kwayana, who is an honorary Buxtonian (he was born in Lusignan, East Coast Demerara), has long advocated the learning of the Kiswahili language and some of his students in Guyana took and passed Kiswahili at the GCE O-levels. Buxton Village in Guyana is one of more than 100 villages that were established by African Guyanese after slavery was abolished and the Africans pooled their money and bought abandoned plantations from their former enslavers. The White slaveholders were compensated for losing their property (enslaved Africans) while the Africans, through back-breaking labour, blood, sweat and tears, eked out a living following their “emancipation” and bought land to establish more than 100 villages throughout Guyana’s coastal regions. The land, which was rightfully theirs since their labour for generations had developed the plantations, was sold to them at exorbitant prices. The Buxtonians are famous in Guyana because of the bravery of their ancestors, who stood up for their rights and stopped the British colonial governor in his tracks as he travelled along the East Coast Demerara in the new train on the newly laid train tracks in 1862. Although most Guyanese know about the history of Buxton, the first village established by Africans was Victoria Village on the East Coast of Demerara. Victoria Village was established in 1845, just seven years (August 1, 1838) after enslaved Africans in Guyana (then British Guiana) and other British colonized/controlled countries were finally freed after a further four years (from August 1, 1834) of forced, unpaid labour on White owned plantations. The descendants of those enslaved Africans managed to retain some of the culture and the kwekwe songs and style of dancing are part of that retention of African culture.

On the weekend of June 13-14, 2016, I was very fortunate to be part of celebrating Guyana’s 49th year of independence, a change of government in Guyana after 23 years and celebrating my book “Berbician Griot.” With the support of relatives, friends, people interested in Pan-African history and the owner and staff of Sisters Uptown Bookstore, it was the best celebration of Black Music Month!

All ahwe ah wan genahrayshan!

All ahwe ah wan Congo Nayshan!

All ahwe ah wan Eebo Nayshan!

IDA BELL WELLS-BARNETT ANTI-LYNCHING HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST

 

With Michelle Duster the great granddaughter of Ida Bell Wells-Barnett at the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, U.S.A during an event recognizing the UN declared "Decade for People of African Descent 2015-2024"

 

 

 

 

IDA BELL WELLS-BARNETT

By Murphy Browne  ©

Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. The nineteenth century lynching mob cuts off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off flesh, and distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd.” Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931. Ida Bell Wells was born on July 16, 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi to an enslaved African couple, Elizabeth and James Wells. She was the first born of eight children of Elizabeth and James Wells, who were freed in 1865. Ida Bell Wells was born just two and a half years before slavery was abolished in the USA on January 1, 1865. Following the abolition of slavery, Elizabeth and James Wells, who were both skilled (cook and carpenter) were able to find paid work to support their family.

In the 2008 published book “Ida: A Sword Among Lions” African-American historian, Paula J. Giddings, writes: “Her parents were slaves at the time of her birth, and during her formative years they made a remarkable transition as freedpersons. James was a skilled carpenter who established his own business in 1867; and Elizabeth became ‘a famous cook’ who ran the household in which each child had assigned chores and attended Sunday school each week. When Rust was established Elizabeth attended school alongside her children in order to learn to read and write.” The Wells children were orphaned in September 1878, when both parents and their nine-month-old infant son were victims of a yellow fever epidemic which swept through the Mississippi Valley. A group of community men made plans to separate the surviving children, who were between two and 14, by sending them to live with various families and they felt that at 16 years old, Ida could fend for herself. She refused to allow the separation of her siblings and appointed herself their guardian. Elizabeth and James Wells had enough money saved and owned their own house to allow their children to live together. Ida, as the eldest and official guardian of her younger siblings, also found a job as a teacher to augment the family’s finances.

KWANZAA DECEMBER 26-2015 TO JANUARY 1-2016

 

 

Hosting a Kwanzaa celebration!

 

 

MURPHY BROWNE

 

It's beginning to look a lot like Kwanzaa! Yes African people (don't care where you come from) it is that time of year again! Time to polish the kinara (candle holder,) buy some red, black and green mishumaa (candles,) roll out the mkeka (mat,) and get ready to celebrate Kwanzaa! Remember to brush up on (practice) your Kiswahili (the most widely spoken African language and the language of Kwanzaa) pronunciation. It is the beginning of December so we have approximately three weeks before the one week (December 26-January 1) celebration of Kwanzaa starts.

In 2015 Kwanzaa celebrates 49 years of existence as it was celebrated for the first time in December 1966. Kwanzaa is a Pan-African celebration and includes the Pan-African colours (red, black and green) that were chosen by the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey (considered the father of the modern Pan-African Movement) in 1920. The Pan-African flag is a tri-color flag consisting of three equal horizontal bands of (from top down) red, black and green. On August 13, 1920 in Article 39 of the Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, during its month-long convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) formally adopted the "red, black and green" flag. The African countries Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, on attaining independence from European colonization chose "red, black and green" as the colours of their national flags while some other African countries have incorporated the colours into the designs of their national flags.

As a Pan-African celebration Kwanzaa includes all Africans in celebrating culture and acknowledging history. Africans from the continent and of the Diaspora, of any religious or spiritual beliefs, or no religious belief, celebrate Kwanzaa. Kwanzaa is celebrated in some Christian churches with majority African American congregations because the nguzo saba (seven principles) resonate with African Americans. African American professor Dr. Maulana Ndabezitha Karenga who instituted the celebration of Kwanzaa has explained that: "Kwanzaa is a synthesis of both the cultural values and practice of Africans on the Continent and in the United States with strict attention to cultural authenticity and values for a meaningful, principled, and productive life.” Kwanzaa was established in the USA and very soon after was celebrated in Canada. It is said that Kwanzaa is also celebrated in Brazil, the Caribbean, Great Britain, France, Senegal and other West African countries. I celebrated Kwanzaa in Italy in 2007, in Guyana in 2011 and 2012. It is possible that Kwanzaa is celebrated in many places that have so far not been listed. In the 1997 published book “Kwanzaa, A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture" Dr. Karenga wrote: “Kwanzaa is celebrated by millions of people of African descent throughout the world African community. As a cultural holiday, it is practiced by Africans from all religious traditions, all classes, all ages and generations, and all political persuasions on the common ground of their Africanness in all its historical and current diversity and unity.”

Most Africans in the Diaspora do not speak an African language because during the four hundred years European enslavement of our ancestors, speaking an African language or retaining an African name was a possible death sentence. One of the most poignant and heartbreaking scenes from the miniseries “Roots” (based on Alex Haley’s 1976 published novel “Roots: The Saga of an American Family”) is the scene where enslaved African Kunta Kinte is almost beaten to death (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CpJpGF8lS8) because he resisted accepting the name “Toby.” One of the results of the brutality and inhumanity of slavery was the severing of the connection between Africans in the Diaspora and our Africanness. Learning even a few words of an African language can be empowering and celebrating Kwanzaa is an opportunity to do so.

Kiswahili words are used to identify the objects used during the Kwanzaa celebration as well as the seven principles (nguzo saba.) They are Umoja (Unity); Kujichagulia (Self-Determination); Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility); Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics); Nia (Purpose); Kuumba (Creativity) and Imani (Faith.) Dr. Karenga said of the nguzo saba: “They are all dedicated to honoring the teachings of our ancestors in the Odu Ifa, that the fundamental mission and meaning of human life is ‘to bring good into the world and not let any good be lost.’ Umoja is put first because without unity we cannot even seriously begin the project. And Imani is placed last because without faith we can't sustain it. But without practice of all the principles, we cannot really accomplish it.” The objects used to decorate the Kwanzaa table includes the mkeka (mat,) kinara (candle holder,) mishumaa saba (seven candles,) mazao (fruits and vegetables,) vibunzi/muhindi (ear of corn,) kikombe cha umoja (unity cup) and zawadi (gifts.) The kinara is placed on the mkeka and the mishumaa saba are placed in the kinara with the black in the middle, the three red to the left of the black and the three green to the right of the black. The black candle is lit on December 26 the first day of Kwanzaa, for Umoja, the red candle closest to the black is lit on December 27, for Kujichagulia, the green candle closest to the black candle is lit on December 28 for Ujima. The pattern of alternating red and green continues until January 1 when the last green candle is lit for Imani. The zawadi are Africentric and educational and may include handmade gifts or books about African history or culture.

Although Kwanzaa is celebrated for seven days there are many Kwanzaa celebrants who use the Nguzo Saba (seven principles) as guiding principles throughout the year. This is encouraged by Dr. Karenga who said: “It is important to note that the Nguzo Saba are used as value orientation and cultural grounding in a vast number of programs throughout the world African community. These range from independent schools, rites of passage programs, youth development and support programs, public school educational programs, and religious institutional cultural programs to various economic and political initiatives and structures. Thus, I'm confident that African people will continue to see their value, embrace their practice and pass on these values and the culture in which they are rooted as a legacy which expresses and encourages the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest sense.”

In the 1997 published “Kwanzaa: The Emergence of an African American Holiday” African Puerto Rican professor Ysamur Flores Pena quoted Dr. Karenga on Kanzaaa: “It reaffirms our commitment to the African culture and gives us a time to come together, as was done by the ancestors of old. We measure ourselves, the authenticity of our lives, by how rooted we are in our tradition. Kwanzaa is a celebration of the good, celebration of the good of our lives, the good of our history, the good of our culture, celebration of the good of life, the good of love in each other, building with each other, the good of history marching towards the ultimate goal of full human freedom” 

The celebration of Kwanzaa began 49 years ago as an effort “to create, recreate and circulate African culture as an aid to building community, enriching Black consciousness, and reaffirming the value of cultural grounding for life and struggle.” The struggle continues as we see almost everyday another video of African American men, women and children brutalized and killed by police. In Canada the carding which targets an inordinate amount of African Canadians continues. Kwanzaa is one of times during the year when we can gather, exhale and reaffirm our humanity. Celebrate Kwanzaa December 26 to January 1. Heri za Kwanzaa!

BERBICE REVOLUTION FEBRUARY 23-1763

MURPHY BROWNE © AFRICAN HERITAGE MONTH

On Wednesday February 23, 1763 a group of enslaved Africans in the Dutch colony Berbice, South America made the first strike in what became known as the Berbice Revolution. The Africans were led by Kofi (Cuffy) an enslaved African who had worked as a domestic servant ("house slave") and was a skilled cooper. The man who owned Kofi was a cooper and had trained him in the trade. Kofi a member of the Ashanti people had been kidnapped from his home in present day Ghana when he was a child and enslaved on plantation Lillienberg a plantation on the Canje River in Berbice that was owned by a Dutch family. The uprising/revolution began as a reaction to the cruelty to which the Africans were subjected by the Dutch who in 1763 had colonized Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo as separate Dutch colonies.

The enslaved African population was exploited as if they were "beasts of burden." The White plantation owners forced the enslaved Africans to live in wretched and degrading conditions while working them to death sometimes in seven years. With the harsh treatment and brutal punishments inflicted on them by their owners, some of the enslaved Africans occasionally rebelled by various means including breaking tools and from time to time escaping into the forests. Those who were recaptured were subjected to torturous punishment and in many cases brutal deaths meant to deter others who might have been planning to escape. In the 1855 published "The History of British Guiana: Comprising a General Description of the Colony Volume 1" White British surgeon Henry G. Dalton wrote "The African negro was imported into this country for the purpose of toil. We have seen a company established to buy and use him as a species of cattle. The very contemplation of such a scheme shows us at once the prevailing features of society at the time. No enlightened object of civilisation, no urgent feelings of philantrophy, no Christian zeal led to his introduction. The race from whence he sprang had long been regarded by more civilised Europe as brutalised and benighted. The poor African, the child of ignominy and scorn, was found a helpless victim."

The White people who colonized Berbice and enslaved Africans may have been of the same mind but they received a rude awakening beginning in 1762. The February 23, 1763, uprising came about 7 months after an unsuccessful attempt by 36 enslaved Africans on July 5, 1762. On July 5th, 1762, 36 Africans from plantations Goed Land and Goed Fortuin seized the opportunity to fight for their freedom in the absence of plantation owner Laurens Kunckler. While Kunckler was absent (at fort Nassau attending a meeting of the Court of police), the 36 African men and women took muskets, gun powder and shot from the plantation house then burned the house before fleeing into the forest. Governor van Hoogenheim sent lieutenant Thielen with a corporal and 12 soldiers, after the fleeing Africans. The Africans who had retreated into the forest were attacked by Thielen and his men. Twice the Africans repelled the attacking Dutchmen killing two soldiers and wounding five. A few weeks later however, the Africans were lured into an ambush and only a few managed to escape further up into forest. One of them was later captured and sent to fort Nassau, where he was executed.

On July 20, 1762 the slave ship “Unity” commanded by Captain Jan Menkenveld landed at Fort Nassau which was the capital of Berbice at the time. Kunckler who had lost 36 of the Africans in the recent uprising of July 5, bought many of the Africans for his plantations Goed Land and Goed Fortuin. The commander of Fort Nassau fearing another uprising requested the loan of 6 cannons from the captain of the “Unity” who noted in his Logbook dated 28 July 1762: “We left our 6 breech pieces on the shore because the governor needed it for his land. After he had used them, he would send them after us on a different ship.”

On February 23, 1763 the uprising began at plantation Magdalenenburg on the Upper Canje River. The burned the plantation house and moved on to neighbouring plantations. They encouraged other enslaved Africans on those plantations to join them. Some of them joined the revolutionaries or escaped into the forest. The group of African freedom fighters were quickly organised into a fighting force by Kofi.

Within a few days the Africans on most of the 125 plantations (113 privately owned and 12 owned by the Dutch Company of Berbice) had joined the revolutionary freedom fighters. The White inhabitants of the plantations fled. Van Hoogenheim gathered the few White men who were left at Fort Nassau. At the time there were approximately 3,833 Africans and 346 White people (including women and children) in Berbice. With the numbers at their disposal compared to the number of White people in the colony complete victory of the African revolutionaries was possible. However, the Africans showed human compassion and instead of destroying their enemies tried to negotiate a settlement of sharing the land with their former enslavers. The Dutch, like the proverbial fox, were cunning and crafty luring the Africans into a false sense of security as they pretended to negotiate. The Dutch were actually waiting for reinforcements to arrive from other European colonies in the area as well as from Europe. When those reinforcements arrived in the persons of European soldiers the Africans were hunted, rounded up and put to death in the most horrifically barbaric manner.

In 1616 the Dutch became the first Europeans to establish colonies in what was later British Guiana beginning with Essequibo. In 1627 they colonized Berbice followed by Demerara in 1752. In 1602, a charter had been given to Jan van Peere by the States General of the Dutch Republic to found a colony on the Berbice River. Seven years, later in 1627 Jan Van Peere's son Abraham van Peere founded the colony of Berbice. The Dutch had colonized Berbice beginning in 1627 with the Van Peere family gaining sovereignty over the area through the Dutch West India Company. Abraham van Peere was a Dutch merchant from Vlissingen in the County of Zeeland, Netherlands. The Van Peere family treated the colony of Berbice as if it was their own fiefdom similar to the manner in which Leopold of Belgium treated the Congo. A charter was signed which established Berbice as a hereditary fief of the Dutch West India Company, in the possession of the Van Peere family. Until 1714, the colony remained the personal possession of Van Peere and his descendants. Little is known about the early years of the colony, other than that it succeeded in repelling a British attack in 1665 during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. After being a hereditary fief in the possession of the Van Peere family, the colony was governed by the Society of Berbice in the second half of the colonial period, similar to the neighbouring Dutch colony of Suriname, which was governed by the Society of Suriname. In November 1712, Berbice was briefly occupied by the French under Jacques Cassard, as part of the War of the Spanish Succession. The Van Peere family did not want to pay a ransom to the French to free the colony and in order to not cede the colony to the French, the brothers Nicolaas and Hendrik van Hoorn, Arnold Dix, Pieter Schuurmans, and Cornelis van Peere, paid the ransom on October 24, 1714 and acquired the colony. In 1720, the five owners of the colony founded the Society of Berbice to raise more capital for the colony. In the years following, Berbice's economic situation improved, consisting of 12 plantations owned by the society, 93 private plantations along the Berbice River and 20 plantations along the Canje River. Those plantations were attacked and many destroyed during the year that the Africans were battling to regain their freedom.

With the end of the Revolution the leaders including Akkabre, Atta, Akara, Kwaakko, Baube and Goussari were executed. Many other Africans were killed between March and April 1764, including 40 who were hanged, 24 broken at the wheel and 24 burned to death. Many others were re-enslaved to suffer the inhumane system of chattel slavery. Slavery was eventually abolished on August 1, 1834 with an “apprenticeship” period that lasted until August 1, 1838. Kofi is said to have committed suicide rather than be re-enslaved but since his body was never found it is possible that he escaped to live in Suriname with the Djuka community. The story of Kofi’s heroic deeds was a part of my childhood storytelling and some of my elders insisted that we were descendants of Kofi.

On February 23, 1970 when Guyana became a Republic, the Honourable Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham who was Guyana’s Prime Minister named Kofi (Cuffy) Guyana’s National Hero. The legacy of the African freedom fighters led by Kofi has been immortalized in bronze with the 1763 Monument located in the Square of the Revolution in Georgetown, Guyana. The 1763 Monument honours Kofi and others who held the county of Berbice as free African people for more than a year. The monument unveiled by Burnham on May 23, 1976 was designed by Guyanese sculptor Philip Moore, is 10.1 meters (33 feet) high and is built on a concrete plinth designed by Albert Rodrigues. On Tuesday February 23, 2016 Guyanese will celebrate the Berbice Revolution and Guyana’s National Hero Kofi (Cuffy) and the 253rd year of the Berbice Revolution.

 

 

Copyright © by Murphy Browne 

Attending the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre performance in Toronto at the Sony Centre on March 5, 2016.

ALVIN AILEY DANCE THEATRE   

by

MURPHY BROWNE 

"My feelings about myself have been terrible. The whole of where I came from, the Brazos Valley in Texas, picking cotton with my mother and not with my father, living through the 1930s, the lack of a father, not having enough food sometimes, going around to those churches and the Dew Drop Inns, all left an enormous stain and a sense of inferiority that lasted for many years. That's one the worst things about racism, what it does to young people. It tears down your insides so that no matter what you achieve, no matter what you write or choreograph, you feel it's not quite enough. One of the processes of your life is to constantly break that down, to constantly reaffirm that I Am Somebody."

Excerpt from "Revelations: The Autobiography of Alvin Ailey" published 1995

Alvin Ailey Jr. is the founder (1958) of the world renowned Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. On March 30, 1958 a group of young, African American modern dancers performed for the first time as members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater grew from that performance in March 1958 at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. Alvin Ailey's genius and the group of young African American dancers changed American modern dance. On the weekend of March 4 and 5, 2016 Torontonians had the opportunity to experience the legacy and the genius of Alvin Ailey's compositions and choreography. Those who attended the performances left with some insight into what Ailey lived as a child. His life was shaped by surviving and overcoming the White supremacist culture into which he was born. Those early experiences shaped the man and affected his entire life and his art. Ailey channelled his “blood memories” into extraordinary compositions like “Revelations,” “Blues Suite” and “Cry.”

Alvin Ailey Jr. was born on January 5, 1931 to Alvin Ailey Sr. and Lula Elizabeth Ailey. Like many African Americans born in the Brazos Valley at that time he was not born in a hospital; he was born in a house owned by his grandfather Henry Ailey. At birth he joined 12 other members of his extended family living in the Ailey home; his parents, grandfather, aunt, her 8 children and her son in law. Alvin Ailey Sr. disappeared from his son's life when he was about four years old. Ailey's first memory of life was "being glued to my mother's hip as we thrashed through terrain looking for a place to call home." According to Ailey during his early childhood he and his mother walked barefooted through the mud always looking for a place to call home. They lived in the homes of several relatives; aunts, cousins and grandparents "not truly belonging anywhere" in those early years. In Rogers, Texas where they lived for a while he described: "There was a black school, all run down, at the bottom of the hill. At the top was this gleaming castle, the school where the white children went." This was the situation throughout the southern United States during Jim Crow and legal segregation. Although African Americans were compelled to pay taxes the "separate but equal" law was a fallacy. It was definitely separate and unequal as experienced by African Americans in every walk of life.

Ailey in his autobiography "Revelations" remembered that during his childhood Texas was a charter member of the racist south. "In the twenty five years before my birth, some forty five black men and women were lynched in Texas. Lynchings occurred in several cities including Houston, Beaumont, Paris, Waco, Palestine, Newton, Fort Worth, Huntsville and Navasota." When Ailey was about five years old he had to live with the trauma of knowing that his mother had been raped by four White men as she finished working "in some white people's kitchen." African American women had two choices of work, pick cotton or domestic work in the home of a White family. The women were always at risk of being raped regardless of where they worked. As a five year old child he could only note his mother's bruised body and her sobbing in pain and fear. He pretended to be asleep and listened as she related the horrific attack to her sisters and women from her church.

The church was a place of comfort for many African Americans who had to deal with the fear of the murderous and terrorist Ku Klux Klan. The women also lived with the fear and in many cases the reality of being raped by members of the White families where they were forced to work to survive. African American women like Ailey’s mother were vulnerable because there was no way to hold their rapists accountable. They had no protection. However there were some African American women who did risk their lives, livelihood and the lives of their families by resisting in various ways. In the 2010 published book “At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance- a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power” White American history professor Danielle McGuire researched and wrote about some of the women who resisted. Rosa Parks was an activist before December 1, 1955 and the book documents her activism in encouraging and supporting African American women to press charges when they were raped by White men. In the case of Gertrude Perkins in 1949 her rapists were two White policemen who were tried but found not guilty because the jurors were all White men who felt that raping an African American woman was not a crime as long as the rapist was a White man.

African Americans including Ailey lived under these horrific conditions and these “experiences” framed their self perception. African Americans at that time living in the southern states were so oppressed because of living in a “fish bowl” around White people that Saturdays and Sundays they “cut loose” in their own communities. In his autobiography “Revelations” Ailey recalled those early experiences of living in the south: "After picking cotton all week or otherwise working for white people, black people would get all dressed up on Saturday night and go off to one of the Dew Drop Inns, where Tampa Red and Big Boy Crudup would be playing funky blues music. Black people were joyful in both church and the Dew Drop Inns in spite of their miserable living conditions."

Ailey’s seminal and iconic “Revelations” tells the story of his early life experiences in the church; from water baptism to singing in the church which offered some comfort to a people who experienced being “buked and scorned.” Ailey was 29 years old when he choreographed “Revelations” using “African-American spirituals, song-sermons, gospel songs and holy blues.” The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater website offers this description of the seminal work: “Alvin Ailey’s Revelations fervently explores the places of deepest grief and holiest joy in the soul.” Ailey choreographed “Cry” in 1971 for his mother’s birthday. In describing “Cry” the Ailey Dance Theater website offers: “Ailey dedicated this piece to "all black women everywhere--especially our mothers." In this three part solo, the dancer, clad in a white leotard and long ruffled skirt, brings the audience on a journey of bitter sorrow, brutal hardship and ecstatic joy.” Perhaps Ailey was remembering his mother’s sorrow and crying after she was raped by four White men and he as a five year could offer no comfort but just silently listen to her as she related the details of the traumatic attack to her sisters and women from her church.

Ailey’s “Blues Suite” evokes the childhood he remembered: “With the rumble of a train and the toll of distant bells, a cast of vividly-drawn characters from the barrelhouses and fields of Alvin Ailey’s southern childhood are summoned to dance and revel through one long, sultry night. Ailey’s first masterpiece poignantly evokes the sorrow, humor and humanity of the blues, those heartfelt songs that he called “hymns to the secular regions of the soul.”” Ailey’s “blood memories” were shared with the audience who attended the performances of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater with flawless dancing by the members of the company. The lighting, the costumes, the movement of the dancers elicited standing ovations. The dancers brilliantly interpreted and presented Ailey’s vision and upheld his legacy. I had the opportunity to listen to two of the talented and dedicated dancers; Rachel McLaren the fourth child of a Jamaican mother and Yannick LeBrun who was born in Cayenne which is a South American country and a neighbour to Guyana. They graciously shared their limited time and answered questions at a media event. I look forward to being awed again by these brilliantly talented dancers as they give life to the vision of an African American pioneer and visionary who proved that in spite of White supremacy, terror and fear he did “constantly reaffirm I Am Somebody.”

Copyright by Murphy Browne