California MAAFA Awareness Month

Whereas, October 2020 is California MAAFA Awareness Month and the 25th Anniversary of MAAFA Commemoration, a pre-dawn healing ritual at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, California. Together, people of Pan African ancestry from around the world will come together to mourn our collective loss and grieve for those nameless ancestors as we recognize their valuable lives and contribution. We also celebrate our indomitable spirit by praising the spark of creation in each and every one of us, and

Whereas, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade of Pan African children, women and men was a military conquest by Spanish and Portuguese governments, authorized by Catholic Papal authority in 1442. This carnage extended into the western hemisphere after the exploration by Christopher Columbus, beginning in 1492. Additional European powers joined in by buying and selling captured prisoners of war, creating the most horrific carnage in world history. Estimates suggest that the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in human cargo cost Africa 50-100 million lives, with over 30 million people who survived to serve as chattel labor, under harsh and inhuman conditions, and

Whereas, what has become known as the Black Holocaust or MAAFA, a Kiswahili term used by Dr. Marimba Ani to articulate what happened to African captives and their progeny worked to death and breed like livestock. The word “MAAFA” or “great calamity,” “reoccurring disaster,” reflects the cyclic nature of the harm then and now. The persistent harm suffered by African American people and resulting trauma is a blight on the western world yet to be removed, a blight upon the United States of America that continues to affect both the psyche and emotional well-being of descendants of the formally enslaved Pan African children, women and men, impacting every American citizen to this date, and

Whereas, “America’s Peculiar Institution” slowly came to an end after the election of President Abraham Lincoln in November of 1860. Beginning with South Carolina, most Southern states succeeded from the Union and started the bloody US Civil War, costing well over 600,000 military combatants and untold civilians lives. On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation, an Executive Order, freed those enslaved in the States in rebellion by force. President Lincoln, more importantly, provided the unsurpassed opportunity for Pan Africans, both free and enslaved, to fight for freedom as United States Colored Troops, and

Whereas, June 19, 1865, called Juneteenth, is our agreed upon date to celebrate freedom. Each June 19 for the past 155 years, we reflect upon the capture of the final Confederate Port of Galveston Island, Texas, and the need for a 7-week military campaign to secure the southern border with Mexico and free those still enslaved at the close of the US Civil War. Freedom and ratification of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution did not address the bigotry and hatred that would fuel race and class pressures that continue today. Systemic Institutional Racism remains an ongoing challenge that often denies many African American citizens basic human rights, as spelled out in the United Nations Charter and denies equal rights guaranteed by our amended U.S. Constitution, and

Whereas, the Civil Rights Act of 1965, the assassination of Reverend Dr .Martin Luther King, Jr. and most recently the public execution of George Floyd on African Day (ALD), this nation’s Memorial Day, has touched off global conversations toward addressing remaining legal inequities that directly impact African Americans and Pan Africans globally. Together, we are beginning to officially examine the ongoing spiritual, psychological and economic impacts of this great calamity or MAAFA on the African American citizens here in this United States, not to mention Africa and the rest of the Pan African Diaspora, and

Whereas, with Spanish conquest along the Pacific Ocean, the vast region of California territory takes its name from the ruling Queen Califia, a Black Amazon Queen based in Baja California who offered military resistance from military force led by Hernan Cortez in 1535. Armed Spanish soldiers and over 400 enslaved Pan Africans were successful in military conquest depicted in the California State Capitol, John Burton Room, as well as in the Room of the Dons, in the Mark Hopkins Hotel, downtown San Francisco, and

At our historic Gold Rush Mining Town of Negro Bar, California we proclaim our authentic legacy and kickoff 2020 California MAAFA Awareness Month, as we prepare for our 25th Anniversary of our SF Bay Area MAAFA Commemoration Ritual at Ocean Beach, San Francisco. Together, we must reach out to civic and educational institutions to look more carefully into our California Pan African Heritage and seek new ways to heal the unique challenges caused by international, national, state and local public policy that continues to impact our communities today.