African Diaspora Festival Celebrates Identity & Culture at Underground Railroad Museum

When rain threatened early Sunday morning, some volunteers at the African Diaspora Festival in Burlington County wondered if the event should be cancelled.

But 92-year-old Louise Calloway, founder of the Eastampton Underground Railroad Museum, has dispelled this doubt.

“We have to continue the program,” she said.

The wet weather actually receded for most of the day, and hundreds of people wandered around the festival area on the grounds of historic Smithville Park, home of the Underground Railroad Museum.

» Read more: Burlington County Honors Underground Railroad Museum Founder Louise Calloway

There was music and dance, including drumming by Sang Mbakke, a great drummer from Conshohocken, Senegal.

Mbake, who uses his first name Sangwe as his professional name, said he loves the idea of ​​black Americans and the diaspora coming together to share music, culture and ideas.

“People feel they can learn something new within their own culture,” he said.

The experience of taiko may be new to many black Americans who have little knowledge of which country in Africa they come from, he said, but it is steeped in generations of pedigree.

Rowena Harvey, a black woman from Willingboro, echoed that sentiment. She said she attends as many ethnic festivals as she can. It’s not just for those who celebrate their African heritage. She recently went to a festival in Brazil and saw elements of her African heritage on display there as well.

“I love festivals. I love culture and exploration,” she said.

Harvey lamented that blacks lost direct contact with their African roots when African Americans were enslaved, because few records were kept or communicated about their country of origin. Today, only through DNA testing companies are African Americans beginning to have a general idea of ​​ethnicity from Africa.

“We are the only ones who do not have the opportunity to identify our country of origin,” said event manager Harvey.

Harvey later met Bernice Finn Ado, a businesswoman from Ghana who sold African clothing, jewelry, purses and backpacks at the festival.

According to Fynn-Addo, festivals such as the African Diaspora Festival allow blacks in America and blacks in African countries to get to know each other and avoid stereotypes that the groups have for each other.

“I was in college and I was driving a car and someone asked me, can you drive a car? I didn’t know you had a car in Ghana. I thought I was on horseback,” Fynn-Addo said. “And this was in 2013.”

She couldn’t remember if the person who said it was black or white, but she heard similar comments from Americans of both races.

Fynn-Addo said many black Americans only know negative stereotypes of Africans from television and movies that portray Africa as a place of starving children and corruption. On the one hand, she criticized the distorted image of black Americans as vicious rappers and criminals in below-the-waist trousers, acquired through movies and media coverage by some African immigrants to the United States. I have admitted to coming here with

Fynn-Addo says she hosts a weekly Facebook Live program explaining the meaning of the symbols on the jewelry she sells. Most of them are from Ghana and Kenya.

“I want people to understand their culture,” she said.

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