Virtual Sankofa Celebrating Our Ancestors ICCAAPM

Every year since 1998, as a fully independent initiative, members of the Charleston community have organized and gathered to enact a tribute program of Remembrance honoring Our Ancestors who perished during the Trans Atlantic Middle Passage. The well-organized program occurs the second Saturday of every June at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island, Mount Pleasant/Charleston, South Carolina.

After over twenty years of funding our annual REMEMBRANCE event using personal funds and small donations collected at the event, the Charleston Remembrance Committee has decided to reach out the public-at-large to help us fund some of the key elements of our program.

THE INSPIRATION
“I know we must reclaim those bones in the Atlantic Ocean. Do you know that there is not a plaque, a memorial, a day, a ritual, or an hour that is erected in memorial to those one hundred million bodies in the Atlantic Ocean? All those Africans in the briny deep. All those people who said “no” and jumped ship. All those people who tried to figure a way to steer, to navigate amongst the sharks. We don’t call upon that power. We don’t call upon those spirits. We don’t celebrate those ancestors. We don’t have a marker, an expression, a song that we use to acknowledge them. We have nothing to indicate that those are our people and they mattered. We willingly administer knock out drops. More horrendous is the fact that we don’t tap into the ancestral presence in the waters.”
--Toni Cade Bambara, 1987

THE BACKSTORY
The Middle Passage refers to the part of the African Holocaust (aka Maafa) during which captive Africans were inhumanly crammed into the cargo holds of ships, bound for chattel slavery in the Americas. These living, breathing men, women and children who had families, hopes, dreams and aspirations, were stripped of any sense of humanity. Historians estimate that ten to twenty million Africans died from disease, starvation, suicide and murder during these torturous voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. Historian Dr. John Henrik Clarke proclaimed, “If the Atlantic were to dry up, it would reveal a scattered pathway of human bones marking the various routes of the Middle Passage.”

The program is a tribute and healing rite and over the years the concept has grown, with similar programs held in New York, Washington, DC, California, Virginia, Panama, The Virgin Islands, Brazil, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Ghana. Remembrance programs are held on the Atlantic coast, or another available body of water. Charleston is an important location for this tribute as it was the point of entry for forty to sixty percent of Africans arriving to America’s shores as human cargo.

The Charleston Remembrance program consists of an educational component where we bring in a guest speaker to address the gathering on topics pertinent to the occasion; a drum procession to the water; a 12:00 noon EST Libation Ritual enacted simultaneously in various locations where other Remembrance Programs are held; and finally, an offering of flowers to our ancestors placed in the water.

HOW YOU CAN HELP
This program is a not-for-profit initiative and is open and free to the public. We view this as important to our collective healing, and the proof is that the program has grown over the years. As a result, there are many program elements that must be expanded upon. It is for this reason that we have sought to reach out to the public to assist in this effort.

Among the expenses incurred are renting sound equipment; honorariums/transportation expenses for our educational guest speaker, our Libationist and our Documentarian (photographer/videographer) and possibly transportation of some of our elders; purchase of flowers, water, ice and other items needed for the program. Also, expenses for the production of the flyer, copies of the flyer and posters, and media and public relation expenses. Our local branch of the Association for the Study of African Life and History (ASALH) manages our bank account and handles all payments and re-imbursements. Receipts and documentation are required for any and all re-imbursements.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and for considering donating to our cause.

We invite you to follow our Remembrance journey via our FaceBook page:
Charleston Middle Passage Remembrance
https://www.facebook.com/CHSRemembrance/

For your information: Guidelines for organizing a healing Remembrance tribute like this in your own community can be found on the Charleston Middle Passage Remembrance Facebook page.

Thank you,
Charleston Remembrance Committee