2nd Edition Newsletter 2016
Dr. Lisa Aubrey Scholar, Activist and Author Delivers Feature Address at the KWAME TURE MEMORIAL LECTURE SERIES
Dr. Lisa Aubrey visits the home of lifelong friend Kwame Ture
The Launch of the 2016 Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture Series, which forms a major part of the annual Pan African Festival TT Commemorating Emancipation, took place on Sunday June 26th at the Central Bank Auditorium. Imminent scholar, professor and activist, Dr. Lisa Aubrey, delivered the feature address at the Launch. Dr. Aubrey, through her research, focuses on making Africa real in the lives of Africans in the Diaspora, as a means of self-realization, healing, resilience and empowerment. She has done extensive research in numerous archives across the world and during her stay in Trinidad and Tobago had the opportunity to visit and do work at the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago. Her scholarly work has led to the unearthing of a massive slave trading site in Bimbia in Southwest Cameroon and to tracing nearly 200 slave ship voyages that left the Cameroon territory in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries destined for plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean. Efforts are now being made to have Bimbia declared a UNESCO Heritage Site. At the launch of the lecture series, Dr. Aubrey expressed her excitement at having been asked to deliver the
Mr. Kambon and Dr. Aubrey at the Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture Series.
Dr. Lisa Aubrey delivers the feature address at the Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture Series
having been asked to deliver the feature address, as Pan Africanist and civil rights activist, Kwame Ture, was a very close friend of hers. Much of Dr. Aubrey’s work has in many ways been linked to the ideals and struggles of Kwame Ture. Her desire to pursue historical research as it relates to the experience of African people during the great Maafa just represents a different path to global African liberation. Dr. Aubrey’s presentation at the lecture series highlighted her research in Bimbia, within the context of the ideology embraced by Kwame Ture and made references to the experiences of Africans in Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean. Her presentation was very well received by the audience which was both intellectually inspired and emotionally moved by her unique style scholarship.
and scholarship. During Dr. Aubrey’s presentation she shared an important antidote demonstrative of the impact that enslavement and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade have had on Africans on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. She stated that in Cameroon many families still remember their ancestors who were taken away and would hold rituals for them. She further indicated however, that others, due to the trauma choose to never talk about this family history in public. While in Trinidad Dr. Aubrey had the opportunity to visit the childhood home of her beloved friend Kwame Ture. At present Dr. Aubrey continues her work in Bimbia along with her young research students at the University of Yaounde I. She has further extended her scholarly work through her collaboration with The African Heritage Studies Association and by facilitating pilgrimages to the Bimbia Slave Trading site through her project Roots and Reconnection. Her academic work has been another step in the emotional and mental healing that the global African community must undergo to fully recover from the destruction and trauma that was the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the institution of slavery.
Yoruba Village Drum Festival Honours the late Junior Noel, Master Drummer
Khafra Kambon, Chairman of ESCTT presents an award to Beverly Noel, wife of the late Junior Noel commemorating his life’s work
The Yoruba Village Drum Festival, which is a major event of the annual Pan African Festival Commemorating Emancipation, was held on the 18th June 2016 at the Yoruba Village Square located in East Port of Spain. The Drum Festival is held in tribute to the ancestors of the Yoruba Village, which comprises the communities now known as Belmont, Gonzales, Laventille , East Dry River, Morvant. This year’s event started with a lively procession from the Yoruba Village Square through the immediate neighbourhood and back, led by the Claxton Bay Tamboo Bamboo Band. The member of Parliament for Laventille East/Morvant, Adrian Leonce joined the procession of drummers and artistes along with Keon Francis, Cultural Officer of the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts and representatives of the Emancipation Support Committee of Trinidad and Tobago.
Cultural groups take part in a procession in the before the commencement of the Yoruba Village Drum Festival
The 2016 Keeper of the Tradition Award was given to Beverly Noel, wife of the late Donald Martin Noel Jr. better known as Junior Noel, in recognition and appreciation of his keeping the tradition of drumology in the Yoruba Village community. Junior Noel began drumming at the age of nine under the tutelage of Jean Coggins-Simmons in Gonzales. From there he went on to play with groups in the Prime Minister’s Best Village Trophy Competition such as Central
Donald Martin Noel better known as Junior Noel
Village Trophy Competition such as Central East P.O.S. Village Council, St. Francois Valley Road Belmont, Lower Morvant Way of Life, Straker Silk Cotton, Sogren Trace Best Village Group, Malick Folk Performers, North West Laventille Cultural Movement and other groups throughout out Trinidad and Tobago. Junior Noel performed as drummer with a number of steel orchestras from the Yoruba Village community such as Renegades, Casablanca, Pandemonium, Trinidad All Stars, Desperadoes, and Gonzales Sheikers. As a drummer also accompanied many calypsonians including the following monarchs from the Yoruba Village, Singing Sandra, Karene Asche, Sugar Aloes and Chucky. He also performed in many other Caribbean countries including Barbados, St. Vincent, Grenada, Dominica, Jamaica. Costa Rica, St. Croix, North and South America, Europe and Japan.
North West Laventille performs in tribute to Junior Noel
The award in commemoration of the International Day of the African Child, June 16th, was given to Kerron Goddard for his incredible work as an artist and his community service. Kerron is one of the founding members of WASAFOLI and joined the St. James Police Youth Club in 2009 as an assistant Drumming Tutor. In 2011 he travelled with the St. James Police
MP for Laventille East/Morvant, Adrian Leonce presents Kerron Goddard with his sward in commemoration of the UN International Day of the African Child
Natural Cultural Performers one of the many cultural groups that performed at the Yoruba Village Drum Festival
Youth Club Elite Drummers and Ignited Dancers as part of an International Exchange Programme, “Culture Over Crime”. He also assisted the Youth Club in launching the project, “Pick up the up the Drum and not the Gun” as a proactive approach to Crime Fighting in Trinidad and Tobago. The Yoruba Village Drum Festival is held annually on the Saturday before Father’s Day and is used as an occasion to also celebrate fathers of the Yoruba Village Community and those who are drummers. In this regard all fathers, who perform at the event are given tokens of appreciation. In addition to the Member of Parliament and Cultural Officer, persons gathered were also addressed by Acting High Commissioner for Nigeria Mr. Ganiyu Adekunle Adeyemi Chairman of ESCT and Everald Watson better known as Redman who delivered the tribute to Junior Noel.
CARIBBEAN GOVERNMENTS MUST INTERVENE IN DEFENCE OF OUR AFRICANAMERICAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS An excerpt from an article by David Commissiong
Black Lives Matter protestor in USA
The murders, earlier this month, of two young African-American men -- Philando Castile and Alton Sterling -- by white American police officers, should bring home to all AfricanBarbadian and African-Caribbean people the critical importance of the United Nations International Decade For People of African Descent, and of our duty to make full use of this UN sanctioned international programme to come to the defense of our beleaguered African-American brothers and sisters. These two recent US-based genocidal outrages come at a time when right-thinking people all over the world are already expressing shock and horror at the phenomenon of white American police officers callously and with regularity killing literally hundreds of African-American men, women and children every year, and the United States Criminal Justice system routinely declaring that the killers are not even required to stand trial for their wrong-doing! Indeed, the U S Justice System has been sending such loud and clear messages that Black, Brown and Native-American lives do NOT matter, that it was not surprising that an ordinary white civilian racist in Charleston, South Carolina would get it into his head to enter the sanctuary of an historic AfricanAmerican church and assassinate black men, women and children who were in a posture of prayer! But the inherent message of the United Nations International Decade For People Of African Descent - which began on 1st January 2015- is that the African- American people of the United States of America are our black Barbadian and Caribbean kith and kin! The nine black American men, women and children who were so brutally murdered in Charleston, as well as such recent victims as Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Mike Browne, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling and so many others-- far too numerous to list-- are our "brothers and sisters"! And they are our brothers and sisters because their African ancestors were brought to the Americas in the same slave ships that brought our African ancestors, and were subjected to the same architectonic socialization experiences of chattel slavery and colonialism in "Plantation America" that our ancestors were subjected to on the plantations of the
were subjected to on the plantations of the Caribbean. The only truly significant difference between ourselves and our African-American brothers and sisters is that we are Blacks in a black majority society, while they are Blacks in a white majority society! This fundamental difference is responsible for the fact that we possess pre-dominantly black or Afro/Asian governments, legislators, nation states, police forces, judicial officers, diplomatic representatives and the list goes on, while they remain a relatively powerless and under-represented minority in the racist white majority institutions of the USA. Furthermore, it has now become absolutely clear that the traditional White American establishment that orchestrated the genocide of the Native American population and the anti-Black slavery and slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries has no intention-- if they can help it-- of ever permitting the black descendants of their former slaves ( or the Native American people for that matter) to ever be truly and fully free in the USA !
Persons of African Descent in Puerto Rico show their solidarity with African Americans
the anti-Black slavery and slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries has no intention-- if they can help it-- of ever permitting the black descendants of their former slaves ( or the Native American people for that matter) to ever be truly and fully free in the USA ! Thus, the very existence of the United Nations International Decade For People of African Descent impels us as Black people to come to this profound understanding of the predicament of our African-American brothers and sisters and to the responsibilities that we must undertake as a result of that horrific predicament … We simply can no longer allow our interest in our brothers’ plight to be restricted because they are supposedly citizens of a different nation! No! We who are joined together by deeply rooted ties of ancestry, kinship and affinity, must not permit artificial national barriers to keep us apart. The time has therefore come when the Prime Ministers, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, and the various Ambassadors and consular officers of our Caribbean nations must accept that they have a duty to speak up for and defend our African-American brothers and sisters! Just as the American State Department, Secretary of State, President and VicePresident believe that they possess a right
These Black Lives Matter Protest signs remind us that women of African descent also fall victim to racism.
President believe that they possess a right to intervene in and pass judgement on our national domestic affairs, our Caribbean high officials of state must assert an even greater right to intervene in and pass judgement on the existential predicament of our African-American brothers and sisters within the national arena of the USA It is high time that our premier officials of state take meaningful initiatives to place the plight of our African-American brothers and sisters before such high level international human rights bodies as the Inter- American Human Rights Commission and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and indeed, before the highest democratic international policy and law making body of them all --- the United Nations General Assembly. Indeed, this was the approach advocated by the late great Malcom X when, in the 1960's , he established his Organization of Afro-American Unity, and commenced on a campaign to "internationalize" the domestic civil rights struggle of the African-American people by having the Governments of the newly independent African nations take the plight of the black American people before relevant international bodies …. Truly, the time has come for us to move forward on this issue! The advent of the United Nations Decade For People of African Descent says to us that the time has come for us as Black people to express solidarity with each other right across the Black Diaspora! The time has come for us to collectively declare an attitude of zero tolerance towards all elements of anti-Black racism and racial discrimination! The time has also come for us to address the United States Government about this issue of the racial oppression of our African-American brothers and sisters, and to use our political leaders and diplomats to take this issue before the United Nations organization and other international human rights bodies! Quite frankly, in this U N International Decade For People of African Descent, the time has come for us to undertake powerful trans-national campaigns of activism to finally and permanently destroy the centuries- old demon of institutionalized anti-Black racism! On behalf of the Caribbean Chapter of the International Network In Defense of Humanity and the Barbados-based Pan-African Coalition of Organizations (PACO) we hereby call upon the political leaders and Governments of the Caribbean to accept and embrace this new understanding of their duty to our AfricanAmerican brothers and sisters, and to act upon it with a sense of urgency!
AN EVENING UNDER THE TREES WITH QURUX AFRICA 2 This year Qurux Africa 2 was held on Sunday 3rd July at Hotel Normandie Under the Trees as part of the 2016 Pan African Festival Commemorating Emancipation. This year the designers included Andre Lovelace, Darriane Phillips, David George, Deron Attzs, Johan Mohammed, Shaun Griffith Perez, Mrs. Faustina Kwakye Ansong and Josephine Hayford of Ghana, Lecthris Holder and they showcased collections of traditional African, contemporary African and Afro Caribbean wear for both formal and casual occasions. Qurux Africa means African Beauty and the event is intended to highlight and grow the appreciation of the beauty of African people and things African, utilising the unique and creative designs and styles of African clothing and accessories. Also present at the event were designers and manufacturers of Afrocentric jewelry. bags, footwear and female patrons had the opportunity to not only purchase a gele headwrap but have it wrapped on spot. Entertainment was provided by the WASAFOLI drummers and dancers. Qurux Africa will continue to grow as a celebration and showcase of the quintessential beauty and richnes of our African heritage.
ESCTT UPDATES Lidji Yasu Omowale Emancipation Village opens in the Queens Park Savannah on Thursday July 28th and runs to
Monday 1st August. The Emancipation Village provides an array of activities including shopping, workshops for youths and amazing food all with an Afrocentric focus. Also available is entertainment by drummers, steel orchestras, spoken word artistes, dancers and calypsonians. The Lidji Yasu Omowale Emancipation Village, named after Lidj Yasu Omowale, one of the late founding members of the ESCTT, provides a space where micro entrepreneurs, artistes and the public can benefit from both an economic and socially enriching experience. Emancipation Day Celebrations begins each year at the Trinidad All Stars Pan Yard with a libation ceremony in tribute to the African ancestors. It is followed by the re-enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation in front of the Treasury Building, the site of the orginal proclamation. At 9.00 a.m. the Kambule Street Procession leaves the Brain Lara Promenade and heads to the Emancipation Village where persons can enjoy the great ambience in particular the offerings of the micro entrepreneurs and artistes. The day ends with a Flambeau Procession which leaves the Emancipation Village and heads to the Trinidad All Stars Pan Yard. Youth Conference on International Decade for People of African Descent The Youth Conference on IDPAD is planned for August 27th. Young persons have over the last two months been involved in planning this first Conference. The Youth Conference is another of the major activities of ESCTT, as it continues its commemoration of IDPAD.