The Way Out Is Back Through: Commemorating the African Holocaust

New York, N.Y. (PRWEB) August 26, 2005

The 11th Anniversary Commemoration of The MAAFA is a week-long celebration that engages the entire community in understanding and embracing the legacy of the Middle Passage and leads toward a process of reconciliation and healing. The centerpiece of The Commemoration is a spiritual psychodrama called “The MAAFA Suite…A Healing Journey™”.

The MAAFA Suite depicts the capture, enslavement and survival of Africans through song, dance, drama and narrative with a cast and crew of more than 100, primarily compromised of congregants of St. Paul Community Baptist Church (SPCBC)in Brooklyn, New York. This breathtaking re-enactment runs from September 18 through 23, 2005.

Spearheaded by its executive organizer and founder, Rev. Dr. Johnny Ray Youngblood, The Commemoration of The MAAFA (pronounced MAH-AH-FAH) began a decade ago at SPCBC as a movement to commemorate the more than 100 million Africans lost during a period in history known as the Middle Passage and the hundreds of years of enslavement that followed the voyage from Africa to America. Dr. Marimba Ani introduced the term MAAFA, a Kiswahili word for "great calamity, disaster, catastrophe, or tragedy," into contemporary scholarship in her seminal work Let the Circle Be Unbroken in an effort to succinctly redefine the horror formerly known as the Middle Passage.

Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, theologian, national community organizer, humanitarian, university professor and esteemed pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York, serves as a Distinguished Lecturer during St. Paul Community Baptist Church’s (SPCBC) 11th Anniversary Commemoration of The MAAFA from September 17–25, 2005.

Dr. Butts has conducted boycotts against several New York institutions for their racist policies and employment discrimination, including a successful, nationally acclaimed campaign to eliminate negative billboard advertising in Central Harlem and many communities around New York City. As a result, the campaign was successfully replicated by other prominent individuals across the country, bringing a national sensitivity to the powerful influence exploitive advertising. Dr. Butts will deliver the keynote sermon on the legacy of enslavement on Sunday, September 18, 2005 at 8:00 a.m.

In addition, to Dr. Butts lecture other activities include presentations by Dr. Edwin Nichols, author William Loren Katz, community health advocate Barbara Major, Rev. Joseph Barndt, community organizer Al Vivian and anti-racist organizer Martin Freedman. SPCBC will also host MAAFA Museum Tours, workshops on resisting institutional racism, Garden of Gethsemane Sweat Lodge experience, quilting, a seaside ceremony, as well as special activities for youth and for seniors.

The general public is invited to experience The Commemoration of The MAAFA from September 17-24, 2005.

For more information, visit http://www.themaafa.com or contact The MAAFA Commemoration Resource Center at 718-257-2859 or 718-257-1300 ext. 180.

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