The Collaborative National African Heritage Month Sept. 9-12
Contents
The Flags 4
Map of Africa and Countries 5
The African Renaissance Monument and the African Renaissance 6
Creating Timbuktu 7
Ahmed Baba Institute 8
Hall of portraits of achievers -personalities 10
Portrait of the first –Naacp: First in the nation, Montgomery county 11
Henry hailstock scholarship award 11
50th Independence Celebrations – Le Cinquantenaire - The Golden Jubilee 12
Independent Dates in 1960 14
Overview: The Power of counted presence: Overview of with African Organization of the Year: Senase 16
Montgomery: First in the Nation 17
Interfaith Prayer Breakfast 17
African Union Village 17
The US African Renaissance Conference 18
African Renaissance Gala 20
The Special Honorees are: 20
AGOA: I Wear Africa Fashion Show 21
What is your Hat-itude? 21
Diaspora Festival of African Arts and Culture 22
Parade Route to the African Union Village 22
Youth Education and Culture 26
African Model of American Excellence 26
I am Africa, her Future isMe 26
multicultural united states 27
Children Festival with wipapa African footsteps of tomorrow 28
The African Mall and Market Fair 31
African Heritage and Le Cinquantenaire Jubilee Ball with Music and Film Awards 32
The African Heritage Health Fair and Sport 32
Sponsorships and Working Committees 35
Organizers for History 35
Goodwill Seed Donors 35
Patronage Sponsors 35
Tickets to events 35
Conference Hotel and Lodging 36
Contacts 36
Payments 36
Site and Timeline Details 36
The African Presence and Contributions
The Common Bonds
Africa Union and the United States
The Flags
On the left is the new African Union Flag adopted at the 14th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa on 31 January 2010. The green colored flag is decorated with 53 golden stars that symbolize the African states, making a circle. At the middle of the cycle there is a green map of Africa and an effigy with solar rays in white color.
On the right is the nationalflag of the United States of America. It consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with ablue rectangle in the canton (referred to specifically as the "union") bearing fifty small, white, five pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars (top and bottom) alternating with rows of five stars. The fifty stars on the flag represent the 50 statesand the 13 stripes represent the original thirteen coloniesthat rebelled against the British Monarchy andbecame the first states in the Union.
Map of Africa and Countries
The African Renaissance Monument and the African Renaissance
The African Renaissance Monument (left) is a 49m tall bronze statue overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in the Ouakam suburb in Senegal. It was designed by Senegalese architect Pierre Goudiaby after an idea presented by President Abdoulaye Wade. The formal dedication occurred on 4 April 2010, Senegal's “National Day" commemorating the 50th anniversary.
The African Renaissance is a concept premised on African people and nations overcoming the challenges confronting the continent by achieving cultural, scientific, economic, spiritual renewal and self-reliance. Popularized by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, the concept has a historical background and the glorious awakening was foretold by one of the founders of the African National Congress, Pixley ka Izaka Seme, in a speech at New York's Columbia University, in 1906:
"The brighter day is rising upon Africa...Yes the regeneration of Africa belongs to this new and powerful period. The African people...possess a common fundamental sentiment which is everywhere manifest, crystallizing itself into one common controlling idea...The regeneration of Africa means that a new and unique civilization is soon to be added to the world."
Creating Timbuktu
The Ahmed Baba Institute in Timbuktu: Helping Africa Discover its Forgotten History[1]
Timbuktu is not
the end of the Eart
it's the center
By historian Salem Ould Alhadji
Once upon a time, centuries back, the Malian city of Timbuktu captured the European imagination with estimates of destinations remote and exotic. Timbuktu was a wealthy trading center from where traders took gold, salt and other goods to Europe and Mediterranean. But it was noted for more than her wealth and trade – it was a center for academics and scholars of religion, literature and science.
Salt trade
Boats sailed by Mansa Mussa's uncle, Abu Bakar II, to the Americas.
In his 16th century book Descrittione dell’Africa (Description of Africa) the Granada-born Leo Africanus (a nickname a name assigned to Leo by his Italian peers), diplomat, historian of the 16th century and historical Renaissance - era traveler, described Timbuktu and Africans “The African love for knowledge, literature and learning never died. As it has been in the days of the early Egyptian Kingdom, so it was in the days of Askia Mohammed. He wrote about Timbuktu: There are many judges, doctors and clerics here, all receiving good salaries from King Askia Mohammed of the State of Songhay. He pays great respect to men of learning. There is a great demand for books, and more profit is made from the trade in books than from any other line of business. There were 100,000 people in the city and one-quarter of them were students or professors. “
This was the golden age of Africa. Not only were books written and published in Timbuktu, books were imported and copied in Timbuktu and there was an advanced local book copying industry in the city. The universities and libraries contained unmatched scholarly works.
By the 12th century, Timbuktu had become a celebrated and established center of learning and commercial activities. There were universities: the Sankore University, Jingaray Ber University and Sidi Yahya University.
Skilled with ingenuity, Timbuktu proved its crafts and trade. Leo Africanus focused on knowledge, projected and painted a picture of a learned, cultured and peaceful place where books were the main industry, where one literally walked on "gold."
Today, treasures are being unearthed and they drastically alter world views on Timbuktu as well as Africa and her history. The collections, called the “Timbuktu manuscripts,” some written as far back as in the 1200s -the 13th century, disprove the myth that Africa had no written history.
Professor Ahmed Baba of Songhai, reputably one of the greatest scholars of the sixteenth century and known among the Songhai as "The Unique Pearl of his Time" was the author of 60 books. The famous scholar Morocco claimed that his library of 1600 books had been plundered, and that his library was one of the smaller in the city. [2]
Ahmed Baba Institute
The Ahmed Baba Institute in Timbuktu is dedicated to the collection and preservation of the works generated in the era. The Institute’s deputy director, Sidi Mohamed Ould Youbba, is quoted as saying. "He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare and he wrote more than Shakespeare, and the only reason he was not as well known is that Timbuktu was isolated; Europeans couldn't find it."
Ancient manuscripts in Timbuktu prove a written history often overlooked by the rest of the world, are crumbling due to lack of funding for preservation. Ahmed Saloum Boularaf, (left) a local businessman, shows off his grandfather's private collection of 1700 manuscripts, some of which go back to the 13th century. He is looking for funds to help conserve and repair the manuscripts, which are fast deteriorating.[3]
By 2005, there was heightened awakening by researchers to preserve tens of thousands of ancient texts that prove Africa had a written history at least as old as the European Renaissance.
In 2005, former South African President Thabo Mbeki launched “Operation Timbuktu” to build a new Ahmed Baba Institute facility with an exhibition of some of the most valuable works amassed in South Africa in October 2005. Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard University's African and African-American studies has been instrumental in promoting the importance of preserving the documents.
When Professor Gates saw a storeroom full of these manuscripts written by African scholars in the centuries ago, he cried. Asked why by Ismael Haidara, the developer of the Fondo Kati Library in Timbuktu, who showed him the manuscripts, Professor Gates replied that he had been taught in school that “Africa had only oral culture and lacked written history and intellectual tradition and that he had been teaching the same thing at Harvard for years and now he knew all that was wrong." Gates recalls how he felt the day Haidara showed him the manuscripts that "put the lie" to Western claims about.[4]
The goal of Creating Timbuktu is to develop multiple paths of awareness and raising resources to preserve the work generated in the era. The Creating Timbuktu Committee welcomes the outreach and $1.00 (one dollar) goodwill donation, 100% of which will go to the Ahmed Baba Institute. A local proverb goes: The nations formed a single line and Timbuktu was at the head. But one day, God did an about-turn and Timbuktu found itself at the back. Perhaps one day God will do another about-turn so that Timbuktu can retake its rightful place.”
Hall of portraits of achievers -personalities
Portrait of Achievers: Cheers to the Catalysts Upholding the Pride.
In documenting and preserving history - the origins and development of ideas, the people who inspire by deeds immortalize the presence and contributions. They make humankind proud; they uphold the ethnic pride of the American Continental African population; they inspire and make society a better place.
During the Heritage Month, these contributors and visionaries who have excelled in various domains would be profiled. Their portraits and narratives would grace events and libraries as we documentContinental Africans in America: Presence, Accomplishments and Contributions.
Criteria:
ü They are persons who trace their presence in America to migration from a specific African nation beginning in the 20th century. The population includes persons born in the United States.
ü They exemplifycommunity developments thatbuild and shape our communities and advancements.
ü They are achievers in theirfields, projecting public and positive influence in the American society.
ü They havedemonstrated the importance of civic involvement that fosters the image of Africa and Continental Africans in America.
Nomination/Application Process:
All nominations for the Portrait of Achievers must bemust be made exclusively by organizations, or institutions -- both public and private -- with knowledge of the accomplishments.
The nominating organization or institutions should forward summary of the accomplishments and why they make a difference.
All nominations must be received by July 31, 2010.
Portrait of the first –Naacp: First in the nation, Montgomery county
Henry hailstock scholarship award
Founded February 2 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the nation's oldest, largest and most widely recognized grassroots–based civil rights organization. The members and supporters throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.
Founding group
The NAACP was formed partly in response to the continuing horrific practice of lynching and the 1908 race riot in Springfield, the capital of Illinois and resting place of President Abraham Lincoln. Appalled at the violence that was committed against blacks, a group of white liberals that included Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard, both the descendants of abolitionists, William English Walling and Dr. Henry Moscowitz issued a call for a meeting to discuss racial justice. Some 60 people, seven of whom were African American (including W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell), signed the call, which was released on the centennial of Lincoln's birth.
The NAACP's principal objective is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of minority group citizens of United States and eliminate race prejudice. The NAACP seeks to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through the democratic processes. The NAACP established its national office in New York City in 1910 and named a board of directors as well as a president, Moorfield Storey, a white constitutional lawyer and former president of the American Bar Association. The only African American among the organization's executives, Du Bois was made director of publications and research and in 1910 established the official journal of the NAACP, The Crisis. For more, go to: http://www.naacp.org
Montgomery County, Maryland is the first NAACP branch to extend outreach to the Continental African community with an African Affairs Committee. The Portrait and Henry HailstockScholarship Award is established in honor the pioneer visionary first of Mr. Henry Hailstock,President Emeritus of NAACP Montgomery, Maryland underwhose leadership the AfricanAffairs committee was founded. The Scholarship will benefit Montgomery County high school students in leadership programs.
50th Independence Celebrations – Le Cinquantenaire - The Golden Jubilee
In 2010, 17 African countries celebrate the 50th Independence known in French as Le Cinquantenaire. The independence of Ghana in March 1957 opened an eracalled the “suns of Independence,” setting the path of Africa's freedom. An array of separate and collaborative events is marking the 50th anniversary.
Hello, I am Brigitte Kobenan, founder of the Autism Community of Africa (ACA) and I am Mrs. World Congeniality 2008. ACA is the host of the community collaborative Le Cinquantenaire on July 17 with a Summer Fest Barbeque Picnic featuring the Parade of the Flags in a relaxed, community and family friendly setting that kicks off the Spirit of 2010 Jubilee. Time: 2pm to 6pm at the James E. Duckworth Regional Center School on 11201 Evans Trail in Beltsville, Maryland. You can visit us at: www.autismcommunityofafrica.org Call: 443-718-1824. We wish you a Joyous Cinquantenaire and Africa Heritage Month 2010.