The Negro National Anthem–As You’ve Never Seen it Before…/ A Black History Moment

African American History, African American music, American politics, ancestors, descendants of slaves, music, slavery

Although February has been established as Black History Month the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project wishes to post this video on this first day of March. We acknowledge that our history spans every day of the year and we hope that you will keep that in mind as you visit our site and read the posts. Please remember all those whose shoulders and backs we stand upon today. Read More

Source Documents for Blog Visitors, February 2012

African American History, African American music, African Diaspora, African ethnic groups, Afro-Latinos, burial ceremonies, captured Africans, descendants of slaves, enslaved women, ethnic studies, Mexican Americans, oral history, Slave economy, slave ships, slavery, transatlantic slave trade

This project is committed to getting out information to those who are interested. We pledged to provide readers quarterly with materials that we base the posts upon, so here are the second quarter’s materials as promised by category with annotation. Articles: African Burial Ground Project: paradigm for cooperation? by Michael Blakey (Museum International, UNESCO, 2010). Professor Blakey is on our project’s advisory board and worked continuously on the Manhattan African Burial Ground Project. Read More

Holiday Post: Distant Shore

African American music

Click to listen: Remember Me Photographed at dawn, we look eastward to our ancestors’ motherland. How did they live into tomorrow? Yet most did. They are who we were, are and will be. “Remember Me” accompanying this post was arranged by Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, and performed by Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon and Toshi Reagon. See Posts: Not One or the Other, Who Were They?, Music and Song, Where Did Read More

Music and Song

African American music, African Diaspora, Middle Passage

A vital life force in Africa and throughout the Diaspora is music. Historian Marcus Redeker in his work, The Slave Ship: A Human History, states that music was a primary means of communication and support among captives during the Middle Passage. The cultural fact of musical expression throughout the history of Africans in the Western Hemisphere has served to ground, sustain, and strengthen a strong sense of identity and community. Read More