When drums “talk,” people in ear-shot listen.
On a day of remembrance, players of the instrument as well as audiences also pause, dance or drum along to the pounding sounds emanated.
There are those who contend the vibrations emit a language specific cultures identify as private communication similar to smoke signals transmitted to inform Native Indian tribes.
Perhaps that’s the principal reasoning for a request from organizers of the 37th annual Tribute to the Ancestors of the Middle Passage for drummers to join the assembly on the Coney Island boardwalk in Brooklyn on June 13.
People of the Sun Middle Passage Collective, Medgar Evers College Office of Student Life Student Government, and the Crown Heights Youth Collective are the sponsors of the event and they are inviting drummers to participate in the endeavor.
Essential to the annual rituals, drums provide the main ingredient for audio satiation to all the other senses.
Not only do drums initiate the rhythm for a spiritual reunion on the walkway, along with offerings of fruits, flowers, poetry, dance, and recitations, they add to the organic assembly of African-attired or all-white dressers.
In addition, drummers also lead to the representative path to the Atlantic Ocean where Africans perished during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Fact is, their talented purveyors have always willingly volunteered time and talent to memorializing ancestors.
On occasions, Nyabinghi drummers — whose music is rooted from Ghana, Africa and adopted by Rastafarian communities throughout the world — are known to play from sun-up to sundown sometimes for days on end.
Acclaimed for chanting to the beats, drummers even ignore bleeding hands while beating to hauntingly infectious expressions.
Organizers of the seaside spiritual are requesting talented volunteers to join the revelry.
Since the last ceremonial gathering in Brooklyn, passages have occurred with transitions of actor Malcolm Jamal Warner, musician Cat Coore, singer Jimmy Cliff, performer Ernie Smith, Civil Rights activist Jesse Jackson, drummer Sly Dunbar, radio broadcaster Bob Law, journalist Jeanne Parnell, community activist Chris Curry, theater producer Woody King, and countless unsung African-American influencers.
And perpetually, forever en memorium are the names of music producer Quincy Jones, musician Sly Stone, champion/boxer Muhammad Ali, actor James Earl Jones, singers Sissy and Whitney Houston, rapper Heavy D., singer Roberta Flack, reggae singer Cocoa T., political activist Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Toure) matriarchs Queen Mother Moore and Alma John, attorney Alton Maddox, reggae singers Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, rapper Tupac Shakur, r&b singer Frankie Beverly, actor Demond Wilson, poet Nikki Giovanni, Congressman Charles Rangel, singer Marvin Gaye, educator Betty Shabazz, actor Chadwick Boseman, South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela, nationalist Malcolm X, politician Michael Manley, Pan-African proponent Marcus Garvey, and multitudes more.
As a matter of fact, never forgotten are all contributors to the advancement of progressive achievements of African people.
At a juncture in the commemorative, they too will be hailed for their lifelong investments.
Participants will also be able to add the names of beloved family members who have transitioned.
Afterwards, a ceremonial procession at dusk will be led by drummers, with fruits and flowers usually thrust to the waters in the name of departed souls sacrificed from captivity.
Drummers and guests are urged to meet at Ancestor’s Circle at 16th St. on the Coney Island Boardwalk, from noon to night.
For more details, email akeem476@gmail.com or call 718-659-4999.
Juneteenth opening for Obama Presidential Center
President Barack Obama, the first African-American elected to the USA, who served two terms in office from 2009 to 2017 said: “As long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on earth is my story even possible.
But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts — that out of many, we are truly one.”
Inscribed at a web portal designed to perpetuate his ideas, his words add to a legacy that will prevail Juneteenth 2026, a day African-Americans regard as a holiday dedicated to commemorating the end of slavery in America.
That day was chosen to open the Obama Presidential Center, a visible structure that will provide information to generations by punctuating the superlative governance of the 44th leader of the United States.
In addition, the Midwestern facility will also manifest another milestone achievement to be etched into history.
According to architects, a privately-operated archive will be completed by June 19 on the south side of Chicago.
The landmark is the 14th presidential library administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Reportedly, a museum, forum, and a branch of the Chicago Public Library is contained in the structure built by the Obama Foundation.
All information are accessible online as artifacts are entirely preserved digitally.
Check out the site at obamalibrary.gov
