Listening to the Ancestors

They know this Redemption Voyage will be a journey like no other.

By Irma McClaurin, PhD

Previously published on Medium (https://medium. com/@irmamcclaurin/listeningto-the-ancestors-2157b395bd80 ), Mar 17, 2023

Here in Plateau, Alabama, the group stops at the entrance of the Africatown Cemetery and one elder Black woman shakes her head.

She speaks solemnly:

“Something is not right; the ancestors are not happy.”

She tells us:

The ancestors are speaking; they say: “We are calling you.

Listen.”

When elder Black women gather, magic happens.

They/We become a spontaneous combustion of spirits & wisdom.

Knowledge that only can come from living a long life.

When elder Black women gather, we ignite each other. We stand together in unity of a vision—like the “Redemption Voyage”—

We are a collective of souls and spirit.

When elder Black women gather, we inspire change, transform ourselves and others, reconnect to heal us & our environment.

What has brought these Black women here; who or what has called forth these global walkers to this space/place called Africatown?

Redemption Voyage.

STOP.

The ancestors are speaking; they say: “We are calling you. Listen.”

She shakes off help, moves away from supporting arms and hands that reach out to steady her. What truths can elder Black women spin amidst the harsh sounds of big wheel trucks pounding a concrete bridge & the clanking of speeding cars? We must heal… ourselves… each other… the earth… the ocean… Redemption Voyage will set sail from Africatown| Plateau | Alabama the site of the last known slavery atrocity.

One elder Black woman twitches from convulsions; What truths can elder Black women reveal as they bow in homage to the ancestors, touch the hallowed ground of the Africatown cemetery, call forth blessings in long forgotten (and newly-learned) tongues of Yoruba, Swahili, Benin (amidst the adopted words of Christianity)? Asé & Amen?

The ancestors are speaking; they say: “We are calling you.

Listen.”

One elder Black woman coughs, chokes, & clears the phlegm, sediment & pollution of oppression from the memories of an enslaved past caught in her throat and infecting the body.

She spits out toxins, amidst the pouring of libations— purified water to cleanse, to offer.

The ancestor spirits are touching us all.

Tears flow, more cries emerge from other elder Black women in the group.

The drummer begins. He calls forth the ancestral spirits that inhabit Africatown. She chants, speaking in forgotten languages that the ancestors once spoke. Then reminds us in the language these ancestors were forced to adopt—English:

Hear them calling to us? We are you. You are Us. Pause.

Now.

Listen to our ancestors emanating from the graves. their whispers woven into cemetery silences. Listen to them speak of the ship that brought them from Benin to Mobile.

In the quiet of a graveyard, sounds of the Africatown past intertwine with the present, like the moss entangling itself on the branches & trunks of Bama oak trees.

Listen.

None of us will profit if all you seek is for “I.” Join together. Collaborate.

Share. It is the “We” that must be prioritized.

Some elder Black women fall to their knees, others bend touching two hands to the ground. The drumming continues.

“We are calling you. Listen.”

There is a symbiosis happening. This Redemption Voyage will prove the truth of the Ancestors’ stories.

We are you. You are Us. Learn from our journey of pain.

They caution us— so many, too many fragments; all with good intentions The Alabama wind gathers up the dust of forgetfulness and scatters it.

In this moment, Rememory, long buried, explodes. Redemption Voyage will heal America. Africatown/April 14, 2023

Irma McClaurin Africatown Cemetery 2013. It is said that those who arrived on the Clotilda asked to be buried facing East, so they could see home, to which they could not return.

© 2023 Irma McClaurin Irma McClaurin (https:// linktr.ee/dr.irma) is an activist anthropologist, the Culture and Education Editor for Insight News, a columnist, and occasional radio and television commentator and recently appeared in the PBS American Experience documentary “Zora Neale Hurston: Her Own Way.”

She is the CEO and senior consultant for Irma McClaurin Solutions, a past president of Shaw University, and former Associate VP at the University of Minnesota and founding ED of UROC. Recognition includes 2023 Honorary Degree from Grinnell College, 2021 American Anthropological Association’s Engaged Anthropology Award, 2015 “Best in the Nation Columnist” by the Black Press of America, and 2002 “Outstanding Academic Title” for Black Feminist Anthropology: Theory, Politics, Praxis and Poetics. McClaurin is a digital author on Medium and for Ms. Magazine. Her collection, JustSpeak: Reflections on Race, Culture & Politics in America, is forthcoming in 2023, and she is working on a book length manuscript entitled “Lifting Zora Neale Hurston from the Shadows of Anthropology.”