Tribute To The Ancestors Turns 25

Guyanese Master Drummer Menes De Griot, r, pouring libation at last year’s Tribute to the Ancestors ceremony in Coney Island, Brookyln.

News Americas, BROOKLYN, NY, Fri. May 2, 2014: The annual tribute in remembrance of the millions of Africans who died during the Middle Passage, enters its 25th year this weekend in Brooklyn, NY, home to thousands of Caribbean nationals.

The tribute will include a drum invocation led by Guyanese Master Drummer Menes De Griot and his Congo Square drummers. The event will include a pictorial display and spoken word event at the Medgar Evers College, EOJ Auditorium at 1638 Bedford Avenue between Medgar Evers Lane & Carroll Street and will be held from noon to 8 p.m.

Performance will come from Akeem and Reelz, Ngoma, Osagyefo, Ras Atiba, Nena Blue, EKG, Osuntoyin, Poetry Flow, Her New She, James Gregory, Jessica Clarke, Finessa, Lyrisis, Imani Parker, New Generation, Jelani Akeem, Jibri Akeem, Wayne Russell, Hermina and Jordan Franklin among others.

The event is sponsored by Akeem Productions and the People of the Sun Middle Passage Collective in conjunction with Medgar Evers College Student Government Association.

The 25th year celebration of the ancestors of the Middle Passage comes as heads of state of 15 Caribbean nations recently unveiled a plan demanding reparations from Europe for the enduring suffering inflicted by the Atlantic slave trade. The claims are being channeled through the United Nations convention on the elimination of racial discrimination, and processed with the help of the London law firm Leigh Day.

Among the demands made on European former slave trade nations are that they:

• provide diplomatic help to persuade countries such as Ghana and Ethiopia to offer citizenship to the children of people from the Caribbean who “return” to Africa. Some 30,000 have made such a journey to Africa and have been offered generous settlement packages, but lack of citizenship rights for their children is causing difficulties;

• devise a development strategy to help improve the lives of poor communities in the Caribbean still devastated by the after-effects of slavery;

• support cultural exchanges between the Caribbean and west Africa to help Caribbean people of African descent rebuild their sense of history and identity;

• back literacy drives designed to improve education levels that are still dire in many Caribbean communities;

• provide medical assistance to the region that is struggling from high levels of chronic diseases such as hypertension and type 2 diabetes that the Caricom reparations commission links to the fallout from slavery.

For more on the Tribute to the Ancestors event, call Akeem @718-659-4999 or @akeem476@gmail.com for further information.