2010-07-26T19:52:00.000-07:00

February 13-20, 2012

Celebrating the Afrikan legacy of Black music that led to the late greats Don Cornelius, Whitney Houston and Ali Farka Toure. Whitney is shown here performing in the Motherland, South Africa-style, for President Nelson Mandela!

Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston (1963-2012)

Don Cornelius (1936-2012)

Ali Farka Toure (1939-2006)

Beginning with the month of February 2012

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February 13-20, 2012

Click here for a brief video on the legacy of
Blacks, Math and Computers in Ethiopia

African Origins of Maths Dr. Ron Eglash Pt. I (Fractals)

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2011

Happy 163rd anniversary of independence, Liberia!

Celebrating the 163rd anniversary of Liberia's independence (and an area soccer championship, above) are the Liberian Community of Syracuse and guests. Celebrants included (bottom photo, from left) Pan African Community of Central New York member and Syracuse University Professor Makini Campbell, keynote speaker Professor Nigel Westmaas of Hamilton College, PACCNY president and SU professor, Dr. Horace Campbell, and Syracuse city schools educator and artist Mardea Warner of the Liberian Community of Syracuse. One Black Voice was among the featured artists, performing "Hapi" from the CD, "A Journey Through Afrika, Pt. I."

Hapi Anniversary, Liberia!
from One Black Voice

2010-07-04T21:33:00.000-07:00

Frederick Douglas Resource Center, Rochester, New York

2010-03-01T20:56:00.000-08:00

Celebrating Black Women during Women's History Month
Harriet Powers

Born enslaved in Georgia in 1837, Harriet Powers created two quilts which are the best known and well preserved examples of Southern American quilting tradition still in existence. Using the traditional African applique technique along with European record keeping and biblical reference traditions, Harriet records on her quilts local historical legend, Bible stories, and astronomical phenomena. Click here for more.

Click here for the Association of Black Women Historians
Click here for locally based griot, Vanessa Johnson Swanzy-Essien

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From the beginnings

Queen Tiye, beloved wife of Nebmare Amenhotep III, and the mother of Akhenaten and grandmother of Tutankhamen.

Women in Power

Biographies

Black Women Inventors

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2010-02-28T16:05:00.000-08:00

Je M'Apelle Afrika Song

Jean-Jacques Dessalines 1758-1806
Haiti's national hero who helped free blacks from French enslavement/colonization (read more)

2010-02-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

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2007-12-03T20:47:00.000-08:00

CELEBRATE AFRIKAN HERITAGE ~~MONTH~~ ALL YEAR

Enslavement is not our beginning, middle nor our end as a people. Check the Timeline

Juneteenth - the Fourth of July

Kujichagulia = Self-Determination = Destiny

To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves ... no matter what.

...............................................

Destiny

by Jacque Kofi, 2003

Seen you in the ball of confusion

Living life like we've got a brain contusion

All I wanna say is don't let 'em fool ya

We should be the rulers of our own destiny

Seen you chillin' there in the valley of decision

While they try to break us down with the devil's precision

Divide and conquer is the way they school us

But we should be the rulers of our own destiny.

(Chant) Eh, compodo bada pa tete yeh (repeat 3x)

Color ain't never really made the man

But that's really for them to understand

We taught everything in our native land

We used to be the rulers of own destiny

I think it's time now that we've got to recover

Starting with the violence that we give each other

Understand the conditions given by another

He ain't your brother if he doesn't honor your destiny

(Chant)

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Who are you?

"You're not an Afrikan because you're born in Afrika. You're an
Afrikan because Afrika is born in you. It's in your genes ... Your DNA ... Your entire biological makeup. Whether you like it or not, that's the way it is. However, if you were to embrace this truth with open arms ... my, my, my ... what a wonderful thing!''

Marimba Ani, activist and scholar

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"If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated. ..."

"Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.''

-- Dr. Carter G. Woodson,

founder of Negro History Week, now called Black History Month

In 1884, abolitionist Frederick Douglass made ... comments about Ancient Egypt in a commencement speech before the literary societies of Western Reserve College in Rochester:

"The fact that Egypt was one of the earliest abodes of learning and
civilization, is as firmly established as are the everlasting hills, defying, with a calm front the boasted mechanical
and architectural skill of the nineteenth century ... Greece and Rome -- and through them Europe and America have received
their civilization from the ancient Egyptians. This fact is not denied by anybody. But Egypt is in Africa. Pity that it had not been in Europe, or in Asia, or better still in America!

Another unhappy circumstance is, that the ancient Egyptians were not white people; but were undoubtedly, just about
as dark in complexion as many in this country who are considered genuine Negroes; and that is not all, their hair was far
from being of that graceful lankness which adorns the fair Anglo Saxon head."

From Legrand H. Clegg II, Editor & Publisher of MAAT News, "A Brief History of Africentric Scholarship." Read more here.

Happy 50th Anniversary of Independence,Ghana!

"All Afrika Will Stand Together'' - the Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey

"It is far better to be free to govern or misgovern yourselves than to be governed by anybody else. - Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s journey through Afrika took him to Nigeria and Ghana, where he spoke with President Kwame Nkrumah and witnessed the momentous celebration of the Ghana's independence from British colonial rule in 1957. Ghana's independence signaled the coming independence of many African nations - a new day in Africa and the world.

"Before I knew it I was weeping. I was crying for joy and I knew all of the struggles, all of the pain and all of the agony that these people had gone through for this moment.

"After Nkrumah made the final speech, we walked away, and we could hear the little children, six years old, and old people, eighty and ninety years old, walking the streets of Accra crying 'Freedom! Freedom!' They were crying it in a sense that they had never heard it before. And I could hear that old Negro spiritual once again crying out: 'Free at last, free at last! Great God Almighty, we're free at last!'

"They were experiencing that in their very souls, and everywhere we turned we could hear it ringing out from the housetops. We could hear it from every corner, every nook and crook of the community. 'Freedom! Freedom! This was the breaking loose from Egypt." 1957. From the book, "The Autobiography of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.''

"Ghana has something to say to us. It says to us first that the oppressor never voluntarily gives freedom to the oppressed. You have to work for it. Freedom is never given to anybody. Privileged classes never give up their privileges without strong resistance.'' -- The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.

Thank you, Ghana, for standing up for Afrikans worldwide.

Black History Month Events

"A COMMUNITY TRIBUTE TO AFRIKA THROUGH MUSIC AND WORDS''

Much love and thanks to everyone who participated in this One of a Kind celebration of Black History at OnaJava Coffee & Soul Cafe. Special thanks to OnaJava owner Reggie Pickard, Charles "CJack Run" Jackson, Tasneem Grace Tewogbola, Dr. Adam Banks, Chuck Jones, New Jersey's Divinia Davis, Tyasiah LeFlore, Shiann Obioma Atuegbu and Baltimore's Odyssey.

The event is a community-sharing gathering featuring poetry, singing, storytelling, slide presentations and music from One Black Voice. It is an OnaJava Coffee & Soul Cafe Black History Month program, produced by One Black Voice Productions. It is free.

Rest in Peace, Godfather of Soul

James Brown: Soul Brotha No. 1's Journey Through Afrika

JB's incredible journey took him from stateside to the Motherland (Nigeria 1970), whose musicians he influenced, and vice-versa.

"
By the late 1960s Mr. Brown’s funk was part of pop,R&B and jazz: in his own hits, in songs by the Temptations and Sly and the Family Stone, and in the music of Miles Davis. It was also creating a sensation in Africa, where it would shape the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti, the juju of King Sunny Ade and the mbalax of Youssou N’Dour.

"

-- The New York Times

"

Fela's drummer and a key architect of Afrobeat, claims that Brown sent his arranger, David Mathews, to check him out. 'He watches the movement of my legs and the movement of my hands, and he starts writing down ... They picked a lot from Fela when they came to Nigeria. It's like both of them sort of influenced each other. Fela got influenced in America; James Brown got the influence in Africa.

''

The Observer Music Monthly.

More on James Brown-Fela connection here.

Thank you, James

RIP, MJ

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