Palmares, or Quilombo dos Palmares
was a community organized by fugitive slaves in colonial Brazil. "Kilombo" means camp or fortress in the Bantu
language of the Mbundu clan of Angola. Much like the Maroons of Jamaica, the Quilombo's (aka Mocabo's) united and organized themselves againist
their captors and created their own cultural system of self governance to includetheir religious, social, poltical, military and
economic interpretations as it exisited in their nativelands. The 125 mile area (now Pernambuco and Alagoas) consisted of nine rivers, nine villages a population of some 50,000 and was led by the King of Quilombo dos Palmares, Zumbi.Zumbi's grandmother, Aqualtune Filha do Rei do Kongo, was a warrior princess and a general that led an army of 10,000 in the battle to protect her father's kingdom, King Antonio I. She was captured in a war and transported throughElmina Castle (Ghana) where she was sent to Recife, Brazil, escaped salvery and according to local legend, built Palmeras. Zumbi ("dzumbi") means warrior or God of War, led the Quilombo's in successful battlesagainst the Portugese until November 20, 1695. National Day of Black Consciousness was established in Brazil to honor the legendary King Quilombo dos Palmares: Zumbi.-
Sankofa Project- African DNA
Still wandering? We're doing our part to reconnect as many African families torn apart by the slave trade as possible. We've collected several hundreds of DNA samples from Africa that have already led to exact matches here in the United States and Europe. If your research leads you to the waters edge, where will you turn for more information to answer those all important questions? Who am I? and Where did I come from? Granted: Many generations of Americans may have the same questions but for the African descended Americans, the painstaking efforts to retrace the footsteps of our ancestors is far more complicated because while the United States is made up of a nation of immigrants- African descended Americans are not descendants of immigrants. Our story is different, far differnt than any other in the Diaspora and the one saving grace to help us answer our questions is DNA. To participate in the CAAGRI Project at Family Tree DNA, --click here get your kit today!
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Ties That Bind
Most of us generally go about our busy lives without any attention given to the subtleties around us. Our schedules don't allow our minds to rethink the places and things we see every day. For example, when we think of Washington D.C., towering monuments etched in stone might come to mind. In New York, we may think of the Statue of Liberty and New Orleans triggers Mardis Gras on Canal Street. It is second nature to associate these landmarks with a specific geographic location because that's what we've been trained to do as a part of our history lessons in school. What our classrooms and books did not include is the subject of Ties That Bind. Here we will explore the enormous ancestral footprint of Africa in our every day lives on every habitable continent in the world, since the beginning of time.
Events Calendar
Dulin Learning Center, Room 134
10:30 AM to 1:30 PM
Marking the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.
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Recognition, justice and development for people of African heritage is the theme for the ten year long celebration of People of African descent. The kickoff began with a jazz concert in Dakar, Senegal on April 30, 2013. United Nations Resolution 66/144 of 19 December 2011, encouraged the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent to develop a programme of action, including a theme, for adoption by the Human Rights Council,
with a view to proclaiming the decade starting in 2013 the Decade for People of African Descent. There are at least 3,652 days in ten years and there are approximately 6.9 billion people in the world of which 5.8 billion are people of African descent (that's 5/6 of the world's population). If only half of this population did somethng every day to honor and recognize our ancestors, imagine how a new history would be recorded.
Continue reading to learn more about the Working Group of experts on People of African Descent.
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