“When you have a platform to speak out against
oppression, and to speak for your people, you have to embrace it,” says Kashif
Powell, a poet and postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University in the United States.
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| Kashif Powell (Photo: A. McKenzie) |
Powell was one of some 200 scholars attending the 2015
biannual conference of the Collegium for African American Research (CAAR),
which took place at Liverpool Hope University in northern England, June 24 to
28.
Titled “Mobilising Memory: Creating African Atlantic
Identities”, this latest CAAR conference more than ever highlighted the need for dialogue
about the transatlantic slave trade and its legacy, especially in light of
recent atrocities against people of African descent in the United States.
It took place also against the backdrop of Liverpool’s
history as a major slaving port in the 18th century and placed particular
emphasis this year on the role that writers, artists and scholars play in
preserving and “activating” memory in the struggle for social justice and human
rights.
“When one is part of a group, part of a besieged
identity, one has the responsibility of active involvement,” said Irline François,
a Haitian-born professor at Goucher College - based in Baltimore, Maryland, where
protests occurred earlier this year after an African-American man, Freddie Gray, died in police custody.
Gray was one of several unarmed young black men killed
by police in recent months. Then, just days before the start of the conference,
a white gunman killed nine people inside the historic Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church, in Charleston, South Carolina. These murders gave an added
sense of urgency to many of the scholarly presentations.
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| The CAAR poster for Liverpool, by artist Lubaina Himid |
Author of a forthcoming book on the African Diasporas
in the Americas, François presented a paper that looked at the work of Haitian
writers Edwidge Danticat and Yanick Lahens in relation to “history, memory and
forgetting”.
She and other CAAR participants including Powell argued
that it is only by examining human rights abuses as well as personal and
collective trauma that healing can be achieved, and scholars have a part to
play in this.
“I do have a responsibility but it’s also a privilege
to represent my black experience,” Powell said in an interview. “I think it’s
important for people to be made to remember. We can’t just pretend that certain
things never happened.”
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| Prof. Cynthia Hamilton, co-organizer of the CAAR conference. |
Formed in 1992, CAAR began as an “association of
individual European scholars working in the field of African American studies”. It has grown to become an
“intercontinental organization” with members from around the world, according to a statement from the organizers.
“We are convinced that African American Studies has
broad implications for the world today,” the association says. “Placing the
field in an international context provides valuable reciprocal insights.
“African-Americans are the best studied ethnic
minority in the world, and the theoretical and empirical understanding gained
from this research is relevant to ethnic and racial issues elsewhere,” it
added. Members say that the organization is trying to re-define itself to achieve greater diversity.
For this year’s conference, CAAR teamed up with the new Institute for Black Atlantic Research, or IBAR, based
at the University of Central Lancashire, north of Liverpool. Alan Rice, professor in English and co-director of
IBAR, and Cynthia Hamilton, head of the Department of English at Liverpool Hope University, were the co-organizers
of the event.
IBAR’s involvement led to the participation of more writers
and performance artists at the conference, as the institute’s emphasis is on
art and culture, Rice said.
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| Tayo Aluko (Photo: A. McKenzie) |
Rose Thomas, a 73-year-old author and Liverpool
resident, read from her manuscript about life in the city for Black people in
the 1950s, and poet and musician Curtis Watt got the assembled scholars laughing
with his ironic sung-poems about the forms that discrimination can take.
Keeping with the theme of memory and activism, Tayo Aluko
performed excerpts from his one-man show Call
Mr. Robeson, about the life of American singer and activist Paul Robeson.
In his moving baritone, the Nigerian-born and Liverpool-based
Aluko takes on the persona of Robeson, telling of his rise to fame in the nineteen-twenties
and Thirties and the persecution that came with his speaking out against class discrimination
and racism.
The U.S. government even confiscated Robeson’s passport,
preventing him from travelling and performing, but officials couldn’t suppress
the songs. Aluko’s renditions of “The Battle of Jericho”, “Ol’ Man River” and
other pieces keep alive the memory of Robeson’s long fight against oppression.
His performance also underscored the links between
art, politics and activism, which many scholars discussed during the
conference. The academic presentations ranged from an examination of
“Rebellious Thinkers, Poets, Writers, and Political Architects” to a discussion
of “Slavery, Representation and Black Cultural Politics in 12 Years a Slave”.
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| Part of the exhibition at the International Slavery Museum. |
The conference additionally drew attention to the role
that museums are playing in the fight for social justice and equality. One of
the keynote speakers, David Fleming, said that some museums are rejecting the
notion of “neutrality” and opting to take a stand on human rights.
“Social justice just doesn’t happen by itself; it’s
about activism and people willing to take risks,” said Fleming, director of
National Museums Liverpool, which includes the city’s International Slavery
Museum.
The latter looks at aspects of both historical and
contemporary slavery, while being an “international hub for resources on human
rights issues”.
As the conference was taking place, the museum launched
an exhibition titled “Broken Lives”, about slavery in modern India and the
experiences of the country’s Dalit community. Nearly half of the world’s
victims of modern slavery are in India, and most of these are Dalits, formerly
known as “untouchables”, the exposition pointed out.
Many CAAR participants went to view this exhibition as
well as the museum's permanent display on the transatlantic slave trade.
Some also took part in a “slavery tour” whose aim is to remind the public of
Liverpool’s past as a dominant actor in the slave trade. The city is also the home of
the oldest Black African community in Britain.
“It’s important to have a space like this to show the
importance of remembering,” Powell told SWAN’s editor Alecia McKenzie, as they
ran into each other at the museum on the last day of the conference.
(In October SWAN will have a special article about IBAR’s work.)
