Black Ink Archives

Dedication of Martin Luther King Highway in Prince George’s County, Maryland

Dedication of Martin Luther King Highway, Prince George's County, Maryland

Local History in Prince George’s County, Maryland

Records & Recollections: Early Black History in Prince George's County, Maryland

As a park historian for what used to be the “History Division” of MNCPPC, I researched the African-American experience during the colonial and ante-bellum periods, documenting the various relevant remaining physical sites, interviewing older residents about specific churches, schools and neighborhoods, and chronicling the history of specific families whose lineages began in the county. That work lasted from 1982 to 1989. Years later, from 2000 to 2009, my local history research focused on one specific place.  The preservation of local history is important because it “keeps the story” of man’s existence in a specific place – alive for future generations. Local history and preservation is not about “living in the past” but rather about the continual building process that is based on an appreciation of early accomplishments, lessons learned from trials and tribulations, and understanding the evolution of humanity. If done well, it is the uninterrupted storytelling of the lives of a people. It is truly interesting to me.

Community Networking: X2REP, Inc.

X2REP, Inc., a community-based youth group, comes to Annapolis

I’m a very big fan of being responsible to your community in a positive way. I think we, as a people, sometimes take for granted the institutions and professions that help maintain our quality of life. Most of us want to reside in a clean, safe, and peaceful environment. Such a place gives us time to raise a family, be a part of a larger group of families, and contribute to our the world family. In my former job as museum director of a historic house museum, the students of X2REP, Inc., supported us our efforts to get a state grant for restoration of the historic roof at Poplar Hill. The students spent the entire day with us in Annapolis, going from one budget hearing to the next and spoke on our behalf. We also took the time to tour the historic area, making a special visit to Kunte Kinte Memorial site. It was one of those times when you feel present in the moment, pleased at being involved in civic activities, while remembering how far we have come as Americans. It was a wonderful day.

District V Coffee Club: Communities that Work Together

District V Coffee Club: Communities that work together

(originally written for a local news article)

Over the past several years, as museum director of Poplar Hill, I have both enjoyed and learned a lot from the District V Coffee Club. I attended the weekly meetings to keep the community informed about our activities. In fact, even though the museum is closed (temporarily) and I no longer work there, I still attend. I write occasional stories about the issues and events important to the communities that make up the southern tier of the county. It is a pleasure and I find a hard time denying myself of the opportunity to be an engaged citizen. Being an “engaged citizen” is not an easy thing to do. Depending on where you are in life, residents often see things differently. Each week, reprentatives of communities as far south of the county as Aquasco, on up to Upper Marlboro, meet at 9 am. sharp in the community Safeway and they “make it work.” (Yea, I’m kinda using the Tim Gunn phrase…)

Wednesday meeting of the District V Coffee Club

The residents discuss a host of issues from snow removal (the recent big blizzard), to planned road systems and housing developments, education, the impact of the economy on the local population. The group does this without being political. Politicians are welcome to attend, but taking care of community business is not a Democratic or Republican issue – it’s all about the neighborhoods.

Why a Safewawy grocery store? Well, people walk in for their milk, juice, or whatever grocery items they need. They’ll see their neighbors discussing issues relevant to their lives, and they are both welcome and invited to sit in on the discussion. What’s even better is that District V police officers attend and give reports on what ever safety issues citizens should be informed of. It is a give-and-take process – each entity being responsible to the other. And by the way, kudos to Safeway management for facilitating such a great group as a service to the community.

The experience is like watching America at its best. For approximately, one hour and 30 minutes (often more), residents can sit in on a process and work out differences, challenge themselves to come up with solutions, and share in making positive changes where they live.

Nikki Giovanni wrote in one of her poems, (a favorite of mine) – “One ounce of truth benefits like a ripple on a pond. When things change, remember I smiled.”

A Coffee Club meeting can be lively. It reminds me of that line from Nikki’s poem. It’s a “ripple on a pond,” albeit a big one. When the meeting is over, it will certainly give you a reason to smile. You definitely get the sense that things will change – for the better – because of the work they do.

Coffee Club Meeting
District V Coffee Club Meeting
Prince George’s County, Maryland

Family Tour to Senegal, West Africa – Goree Island

Impressions of Senegal, West Africa

Back Home
(Originally written in 2001 as a local news article)

Standing in the “Doorway of No Return,” at the infamous slave house on the island of Goree, Donnell Floyd, Jr. contemplated the importance his journey to West Africa. While a new car for graduation would have been nice, nothing, really, could be as meaningful as this trip to Dakar, Senegal – the gift his parents chose to give him for graduating from Riverdale Baptist High school in June. It was the same gift his father received from his mother upon graduating from Duke Ellington School of the Arts in 1983.

Doorway of No Return, in the "House of Slaves", on the island of Goree, Dakar, Senegal

Donnell, Jr., along with eleven family members and friends, boarded an Air Afrique Airlines plane to Dakar for the seven-day pilgrimage to West Africa. The tour package, promoted by New York-based Alken Travel, is particularly attractive to African-Americans looking to reconnect with their ancestral homeland.

“Before I got here basically, my mind was going in the direction of what America has always taught me to think, that they’re not really like us, they’re different, and all the other crazy little stereotypes that we put on them in America,” Donnell said. “But I knew it would be different. It’s even quite the opposite.”

Being greeted by Africans welcoming Black Americans at the airport was particularly exciting said Donnell. “I really like that because I feel like Michael Jordan. You go to America, and they really don’t even care.”

Donnell said he marveled at the persistence, assertiveness, and enthusiasm of the craftsmen bartering goods in the markets.

In retail stores in America, Donnell said, he felt as though the clerks really didn’t’ care if he purchased anything. “Really, they would probably send someone around to make sure you don’t steal anything, especially for me, because they’ll watch me as I walk around the store.

As an example, he noted that one member of the group offered to count out her money for a craftsman as she made her purchases, and the vendor responded, it’s okay, I trust you, you’re my sister.

“You will never hear that in America,” he said. “You will never hear that.”

Indeed, Africans and African-Americans alike are still paying for the consequences of an industry in “human beings” as objects that helped to secure the early development of the United States.

“It was the scale of force exerted by the Atlantic trade which changed in the late seventeenth century,” writes James F. Searing, a noted scholar, in his book West African slavery and Atlantic Commerce. “The great Atlantic powers, Britain and France, competed directly for the slaves of the Senegambia for most of the 18th century, throwing not only their economic might, but also the power of their naval fleets into the balance. The struggle of France and Britain for hegemony in the Atlantic world had an important impact on Senegambian history, but far more important was the sheer volume of the eighteenth century slave trade, whose demand for African labor was insatiable.”

The colony of Maryland received shipments of slaves from transport vessels such as the ship Khouli Kan, which left Angola in August 1750 with a cargo of 420 human and delivered 384 slaves months later. In 1686, the ship Speedwell left from the Senegambia with a cargo of 217 captured Africans, and arrived in Maryland with 189 remaining. Records of these and other voyages, documented by scholars, are now available on a CD-ROM published by Cambridge University Press. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database contains the records of more than 27,000 voyages of ships that transported slaves between 1527 and 1866. Scholars at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Dubois Institute compiled the database.

For Vanessa Abernathy, (Donnell’s aunt) the visit to the House of Slaves on Goree Island and the experience of entire trip left her with a greater awareness of the connection between the African and African-American. It was the economic disparity between the affluent and the poverty of most of the population that was most striking to her. “I know that there are all kinds of other influences here and it reminds me so much of gentrification in the United States,” said Ms. Abernathy. “I think there is a lot of work that we have to do. I think we need to do two things: Number one we have to always realize that whether we like it or not we [African-Americans] are part of the vanguard of their [African] economic empowerment. You know how in the sixties it was political empowerment, but now here we are in the year 2000 and it’s got to be about global economic empowerment.

“I think that we have a spiritual and moral responsibility to make sure that there is justice world wide for African people and the other part to that is that we have to make sure that there is economic opportunity for Africans world wide and that is a major struggle,” she said. “It’s not going to be completed overnight. When we deal with economics on the continent of Africa, we have to be as just with Africans as we would want any body else to be. We have to be the leadership on that. We cannot be about exploitation. And that’s going to be a challenge to all of us because it is very easy to exploit people, but I always believe that you can reap negative karma from exploitation.”

Like Vanessa, his graduation gift resulted in a greater awareness of his connection to the African continent. “My father asked all of us how long we could stay here. I said a year, because I actually like it here,” he said. “They don’t have all the perks of America, but the people are real and genuine, unlike in America where they use you to get ahead. The children are eager. They are eager and they are just waiting for the chance that they may not even get, but they are still working for it their whole lives, where as in America, we have choices every day that they will never have.