JUMPING THE BROOM

Jumping the broom was first seen by many people in the 21st century through the 1977 miniseries Roots in a wedding scene when the characters Kunta Kinte and Bell jumped over a broomstick in front of their plantation community The tradition of jumping the broom at weddings has a long history that encompasses different cultures and continents

But it has “always been a practice, from its inception, used by people who are ostracized and oppressed by the broader nation, state or kingdom,” said Tyler D. Parry, an assistant professor of African American and African diaspora studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Because enslaved Africans generally had no legal right to marry before the Civil War, they saw jumping the broom as a symbolic way to recognize their unions.

In time, Dr. Parry said, that population “innovated, reinvented and reimagined jumping the broom in a way that was fulfilling to them.” The practice has since come to signify sweeping away the old and welcoming the new, the joining of two families and showing respect to ancestors.

“The legacy of African Americans choosing commitment in a time when they were seen by America as threefifths of a human being is why it was important for us,” said Ms. CudjoeWilkes, a founder and pastor at the Double Love Experience, a Baptist church in Brooklyn.

The premise here is that two is better than one, and a strand of three is not easily broken.”Orsella Hughes, Officiant at Serenity Ceremonies.The tradition most likely traveled to America with slave traders. Some slave owners forced slaves to jump the broom to signify their union. Others coordinated elaborate weddings to prove their benevolence to slaves and abolitionists. Around the middle of the 19th century, African Americans identified with the ritual as their own.

Jumping the Broom https://www aaihs org/jumpingthe-broom-and-the-americancultural-divide/

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“The broom is a tool of resistance and joy,” she added. “The broom handle represents the strength of the family, the bristles represent family members, and the decorative ribbon is the threestrand cord that God speaks to.

After the Civil War, former slaves could register their marital status with the government. Many slaves who married before 1865 believed that jumping the broom was sufficient. As a result, some of them refused to officialize their marriage with neither clergy nor county members. Consequently, jumping the broom became a symbol of ancestral acknowledgment and honor. Today, the tradition is alive and well in Black weddings.