Juneteenth Commemoration in the Interest of All

By Biko Agozino 

 “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1935

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 Juneteenth is a commemoration (not a celebration) of the last day that enslaved Africans in Texas were informed by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger that they had been emancipated following a proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln more than two years earlier without being told by their enslavers. The Order promised ‘absolute equality of personal rights between former masters and slaves’ who should now relate to one another as ‘employer and hired labor.’ 

The emancipated men were advised to ‘remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages’. They were prohibited from flocking to military posts in search of protection from racist mobs intent on lynching them and they were told that ‘they will not be supported in idleness’ anywhere. The language of the June 1, 1865 General Orders, Number 3, is racist and paternalistic. It assumed that the enslavers will exclusively be the employers of labor while the enslaved will quietly work for wages in the homes owned by the former enslavers. 

They were expected to remain on the plantations and continue working for those who enslaved them. Any hints of the demand for reparations were dismissed as the expectations of being ‘supported in idleness’ even though working hard was known as working like a Negro. There was no expectation that people of African descent would ever move away from the plantations to seek better opportunities elsewhere (there is still no Freedom of Movement in the US constitution), nor that they could become employers of labor in their own rights, nor run for office as leaders. 

 Not surprisingly, Frederick Douglas and many former enslaved people did not celebrate June 1 because they preferred to commemorate January 1, 1863, when the Lincoln emancipation proclamation came into force. According to Henry Louis Gates Jr., the ‘celebration’ of June 1 came to be preferred by African Americans perhaps because January 1 is too cold a time compared to June 1 but it may not have been the cold weather as such, it could be the contradictory messages in the General Orders, Number 3. 

 The original emancipation proclamation referred narrowly to people who were enslaved in confederate states, leaving hundreds of thousands enslaved in the border states to remain in captivity until the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1865 finally stated that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." In other words, penal slavery or convict labor system remains lawful! . 

In June 2021, the US Senate voted unanimously to recognize Juneteenth as a Federal Holiday but 14 Republican Party members of Congress were the only ones in the House of Representatives to vote against the public holiday. Despite the commemoration of Juneteenth as a public holiday, white supremacy continues to be the order of the day in the criminal justice system, housing, healthcare, voting rights, education, and employment but without a significant effort to offer reparative justice to the descendants of the enslaved. 

 Adiele Afigbo published The Abolition of the Slave Trade in Southeastern Nigeria: 1885-1950 to show that although the British claimed to have abolished slavery in 1834, they had no intention of doing so in Africa where colonialism assumed the role of plantation slavery. It was only after Igbo and Ibibio women rose up to oppose what Walter Rodney termed the ‘double squeeze’ according to which maximum surpluses were extracted from workers and peasants by the colonizers through the fixing of the prices of imported manufactures as well as the prices of exported raw materials and through forced labor that the British started making serious efforts to end what they called ‘domestic slavery’. The women who declared war against colonialism in 1929 were massacred by the British and the Enugu coal miners who demanded a living wage were also massacred in 1949 to show that colonialism was just another name for slavery in Africa.

 The equivalent of Juneteenth in Africa is May 25, also known as Africa Day, the exact date when George Floyd was murdered by police officers to amplify #BlackLivesMatter protests worldwide. Thanks to the awareness raised by the protesters, computer software companies finally began replacing the master/slave codes in their designs with stem/branch alternatives whereas they resisted this change since 2003 when the Los Angeles County contracting office objected to the original language and refused to do business with companies that retained it. The first such master/slave coding was used in South Africa to design a public clock in 1908. 

 About 100 years earlier, Georg Hegel borrowed from the Haitian revolution, the master/slave dialectic to suggest that only masters who fought for freedom deserved equality. He was wrong because a true slave mentality is a revolutionary mentality focused on the plan to escape or to fight and end slavery. Africans should commemorate Emancipation Day too the way African Caribbeans commemorate August 1, Fus Ah August, as Emancipation Day. 

The day should be marked with the reading of relevant history books in schools and in the community and the demand for the ending of modern slavery and for reparative justice to be paid to people of African descent. Instead, many states and the federal government are banning the teaching of African American history, claiming that it is divisive or offensive, as if it is not part of American history. 

 Dr. Agozino is a Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, 540-2317699, agozino@vt.edu

The Africans of Tobago

By Biko Agozino

An African Tobagonian sister once took me on a trip from Trinidad to the beautiful island of Tobago to learn more about the culture and traditions of the predominantly African people who live there (Trinidad and Tobago is probably the only country that officially identifies people of African descent as Africans). I was expecting to stay in a hotel but similar to the African tradition of hospitality, I was given a bed and home cooked meals in the home of a then 81 year old artist aunt of hers who raised ten children in that three bedroom house the way many African parents do raise large families back in Africa. 

I just heard that she passed away on January 10, 2023, a few days after her 98th birthday. Here was the beautiful young lady posing with my sons and I in April 2009, photographed by her now deceased artist son, Wilcox (who had taken me to the beach on that first visit to make sand sculptures and I made a bridge between the maps of Tobago and Africa). Mama Myrtle Morris will never die, she is immortal just like her paintings. Rest in Beauty.

When I asked her how she could raise so many children in the home that size, she explained that it was not just her ten children but also the children of others who were sometimes dropped off by their parents for all of the summer holidays and she would care for all of them as if they were hers. Once, an immigrant from a different island stayed with her for one month prior to delivering her baby and then left the baby with her for a week but never returned until eight months later to pick up the baby just because the host herself was due to deliver her own baby in the hospital. All this sounds very familiar to an African like me who grew up in the Nigerian countryside.

The sister that took me to the island advised me to have a heavy breakfast because I was going to walk until I dropped but I smiled knowing how much I walked while growing up in Africa. In the end, the sister was the one complaining of being tired from all that walking. First, we walked up to upper Scarborough where the Tobago House of Assembly was located. In front of the Assembly I saw the monument to Mr James, a nationalist politician who allegedly committed suicide after he lost the first independence election. We walked up to the top of the hill to enjoy the breath-taking views of the coastline and view King James Fort which was started by the British in the year 1777 but completed by the French after they defeated the British only to lose the island to the British again around 1831. In those days, the British administered Tobago and Grenada together as one colonial territory until 1854 when it became linked administratively with Trinidad. The hospital that was located at the fort was said to be manned by mostly Nigerian medical doctors at the time of my visit in 2008.

In the evening, a retired son of my hosting mother volunteered to drive us to meet a 91 year old school mate of his mother to hear more about the culture of the Africans who live there. First of all, we stopped to speak with Mr Wendell Buckley, the local member of the House of Assembly who was also the Assistant Secretary for Culture. Although it was a Saturday evening and his constituency office was closed, he invited us to his office and gave an informal interview that I found fascinating. Again, this reminds me of the concept of African time which is known as Trinidad time over there, the idea that time can be flexible and so office hours do not have to run by the clock, that the office can be opened at odd hours to serve the people without demanding for overtime payment or any other reward other than the joy of sharing your own culture with a visiting brother.

Mr Buckley (the name of the Irish priest in my home town, Awgu) told me that he returned recently from a visit to Guinea where he went to study Balenke drumming and where he wept to see the misery and poverty in which his fellow Africans were forced to live in this day and age. He wondered how the chief of the village could be allowed to suffer from leprosy in his 700 year old hut when there is medication in the world to eradicate the disease, why a woman was left to wander about with open lesions on her chest, why the people are made to live in such little huts decades after winning their independence from France under the inspirational Sekou Toure, and whether there is anything his country could do to help his fellow Africans back in the motherland?

But he also wondered how the people could suffer such material deprivation by day and still find the joy to celebrate and honour their ancestors with drumming, singing and dancing by night. Just as I was not allowed to lodge in a hotel during my visit, he was also provided accommodation in the hut of one of the families during his visit to Guinea. He wondered why our ancestors suffered such unimaginable cruelty during slavery only for their descendants to enjoy a much higher standard of living than many of their fellow Africans back in Africa today.

Then he described in detail, the ‘salaaka’ feasts honouring the ancestors that I am so familiar with in my Igbo culture. He said that you will find similar feasts throughout the Eastern Caribbean where it goes by different names like Communa festival in Jamaica and Congo festival or salaaka in Tobago. The people of Tobago known as Congo people originated from Igbo, Ashanti, Congolese, Mandinkes and Dahomey enslaved people. He proudly asserted that his grandfather was a ‘Congo Boy’ - a reference to the belief that he was a pure African who did not mix with the other ethnic groups unlike the ‘red people’ who descended from Igbo women that the Europeans raped while they worked as enslaved people in the houses of the masters. He suggested that most enslaved people in Barbados were Igbo and Congolese while Jamaicans were mostly Ashanti but Tobago is more diverse.

Part of their cultural tradition from Africa was the strong belief in ‘obeah’ or protective rituals and invocations that are done under the strict guidance of elders. The water for libations is usually left for seven days in the dew and then taken to a crossroad with four junctions to pour libations to the ancestors. Anyone who grew up in the African countryside will be familiar with the significance of the cross roads as a preferred site of ancestral offerings while the symbolism of the number four in Igbo cosmology with four market day week was not lost on me. From the road intersection, the ritual moves to a sacred compound where some animals are slaughtered and sometimes the blood is poured down a hole in the ground although some no longer allow the sacrifice and insist only on the feast.

There is drumming and chanting until the spirits of the ancestors seize someone and makes the person to ride with them until the person is exhausted and drops. The person speaks in tongues, as many Africans back home continue to do even in churches today, to reveal the wishes of the ancestors who might counsel against a certain course of action or support it as the case may be. Following that, the people would give thanks to the ancestors for their guidance and feast on roasted pork until the morning.

Mr Buckley later took us to see the 91 year old woman who lived above Congo Hill but we traveled along a road called Top Hill Road which translates literally to Enugu, my home state in Nigeria. The English would have said Hill Top but the Africans were probably translating from their own language when they named it Top Hill or Enugu. As soon as we got there, the old woman asked us to show some love by giving her presents and the politician explained that Africans consider it rude to visit an elder without presents. What amazed me was that as soon as I put my hands into my pocket, the old woman correctly mentioned the amount of money I was going to give her!

She offered us something to drink and we each had a glass of water. Brother Buckley brought out two drums and gave one to the elder. They both started playing and chanting and I was almost convinced that some of the words were Igbo words that I could recognize and the words meant the same thing in Igbo (although the sounds could mean something different in other languages too)! For instance, in a fertility chant in which women were supposed to call for salt water (sperm) to be given to them while gyrating and the men were supposed to follow by chanting ‘Mama Kalukalu (penis in their local dialect) Keliwe (erection in Igbo), I was simply amazed. As if reading my thoughts, the old woman launched into the most energetic drumming that would shame many young men, chanting ‘Igbo lele’ or simply; be vigilant. the Igbo, in my language or something like that (and I understand that this was one of the rallying chants of the Haitian Revolution). Her final chant was about Jonah surviving in the belly of the beast on his way to Nineveh and Mr Buckley explained that the enslaved used such metaphors to deceive the slave-holders into thinking that they were worshiping the white man’s God while they were performing their ancestral rituals.

Finally, the old woman told the story of Gangan Khan who is a mythical figure in Tobago and who was said to have flown from Africa to the island but could not fly back because she ate too much salt. The symbolism of this for excessive salt consumption by the enslaved who were fed salt-fish by the Europeans and the high incidence of hypertension among people of African descent was noted. They said that there is a grave where Gangan Khan was buried but I did not visit it on that occasion. Mr Buckley said that he regretted that he could not learn how to fly when he visited Guinea and I told him that there is always the airline. When next I visited I planned to try to see the grave of Gangan Khan and perhaps attempt a documentary film about the narratives or the people.

Fuss a August: Emancipation Day Commemoration

My hosting mother told a story about an old African woman, Mamu, who lived on Congo Hill and who did not speak a word of English. She always celebrated Emancipation Day on Fuss a August (August First) every year by dressing in royal African garbs and running down the streets only to put the clothes away until the next Emancipation Day commemoration. This sounds like a scene out of a movie and I was amazed that an island with such magical tales does not have a thriving film industry. I was tempted to start filming all the wonderful scenes that I encountered there but I did not have a camera that time around. Sadly the then 91 year old drummer passed away before I could return to film her.

Dr Biko Agozino is a Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies, Virginia Tech. He was a Professor of Sociology, Deputy Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, Faulty of Social Sciences, Coordinator of the Criminology Unit, and Acting Head of Department of Behavioural Sciences, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, at the time of first writing in 2008.

The celebration of the life of Mother Myrtle Morris took place on 01.23.23, and the lovely event was live streamed on Youtube.

My Award-Winning Documentary: Shouters and the Control Freak Empire

 

http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi3129384217/

I have just learned that my film won the Best International Short Documentary at the 2011 Columbia Gorge International Film Festival (USA) and will be showcased at the 2012 Havana Film Festival this August:

‘This fascination led him (Tayo Ojoade) to co-direct Shouters and the 'Control Freak' Empire with Nigerian criminologist Professor Onwubiko Agozino. This short documentary which re-visits the 1917-1951 Prohibition Ordinance examines how Christianity, when infused with African cultural or religious practices, creates discords of power and class and so, he challenges laws that legislate against a belief system, questioning the effects of such laws for both the members of the faith and the general public. Shouters and the 'Control Freak' Empire questions power and social control through exposing the central conflict between Euro-centric and Afro-centric religions. It places these two elements side by side to give voice to the voiceless by exposing the schisms inherent in the unhappy marriage between the secular and the sacred.

'Shouters and the 'Control Freak' Empire has enjoyed local, regional and international audiences and has been highlighted on numerous occasions during the Shouter Baptist holiday. First screened at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival in 2010, it went on to win a prize at the 2011 Colombia Gorge International Film Festival (USA). Later that same year it was screened both at the Portobello Film Festival (London) and the Montreal International Black Film Festival (Canada). This year, 2012, it has been selected by the Trinidad and Tobago Film Company for the Caribbean Film Showcase to take place at Havana, Cuba in August.

'Shouters and the 'Control Freak' Empire remains Ojoade's most widely screened film. He attributes this success to his own Trini-gerian heritage, a fact which deeply informed his passion for this piece. Nigerian by birth, Ojoade's interest piqued in Trinidad when he noted how Afro-Christian spirituality sometimes becomes rooted with African cultural practices and the "Shouter" faith attracts his interest precisely because of this. Upon discovering how the Shouter faith was once ostracised when Prohibition laws were implemented, Ojoade's cultural conscience was piqued and he conceived a film which addresses these issues.’

To read more, follow the link:

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/sunday-mix/Trini-gerian_Filmmaker_Makes_His_Mark-160927745.html