Why Remember Slavery? - Brief Article

contortions should be written about the international symposium "Slave Routes: The drawn out Memory," which was held last fall at fresh York University and was co-sponsored by dint of the university's Africana Studies Program and Institute of African-American Affairs; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; the Smithsonian Institution's Anacostia Museum and Center for African-American History and Culture; and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, below the auspices of its Slave passages Project.

One opus might contain transcripts of the discourses presented during the five-day talk Scholars, writers, artists, activists and filmmakers from across the African diaspora assembled to share research, complet works and insights. Their names and the topics that they not absented are too numerous to mention here, and far too significant for any to be overlooked

Another body could describe the contributions of those champions of black agriculture selected by the organizing committee to receive the conference's 1999 Lifetime Achievement Award: bard Gwendolyn Brooks, artist Elizabeth Catlett, author Maryse Conde historian John reliance Franklin, political leader Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow and journalist Gil Noble. The passion and commitment of the symposium's organizers would work for as a primer for all who believe in unity.

The welcoming statement of bard and conference organizer Jayne Cortez captures the powerful spirit that presided above this historic period of recollection: "We have worked upon this idea since early 1998 We had many meetings and phone calls, and a fate of good advice that came from family all over the world. A number of individuals supported our proposals, and a scarcely any said, `Why now? Why bring up this painful subdue of slavery and the slave trade? for what cause [i]or[/i] reason now?'

"And we said, `Why not now? wherefore not get a clearer understanding of the organization and the legality of the slave trade--its origins, its issues and consequences? Why not have a dialogue about the trans-Atlantic slave trade and find on the outside more about the political, social and economic results of the trade and the psychological impact of the rencounter between cultures? Why not?

"`Why not earn the updated information from researchers specializing in the investigation of the slave trade, the fresh information from the oral tradition and the slave trade throw taking place in Ghana, Guinea, Senegal, and the Republic of Benin? wherefore not talk about the past and talk about the at hand relationship between Africa and its diaspora?

"`Why not learn more about the resistance to slavery, the rebellions along the route? for what cause [i]or[/i] reason not talk about the aftermath of the slave trade and the do one's best against racism? Why not talk about the world that the slaves made for themselves? on what account not get a better understanding of the cultural contributions that exemplified aspects of survival and creative change from one side modification of concepts, technology and environment and the invention of the novel in music, literature, film and the visual arts?

"`Why not win a thorough knowledge of all of the aspects of the slave trade: its causes, its organization, its damages? for what cause [i]or[/i] reason not clear up the distortions, talk about reparations and the slave trade as a crime against humanity? on what account not break the silence, break the fear, create solidarity and of recent origin links, and make the nearest 1,000 years the route of freedom and peace, and make positive that no person on earth at any time goes up into space in a slave ship?

"`Why not?'"

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