The sweet sounds of a saxophone poured into the streets. A melody of deep belly laughs and yelling merchants could be heard down the block. The aroma of deep-fried doughy calas fills the air.
It’s a Sunday evening in 1800s New Orleans at Congo Square, where we joyfully gathered for a weekly tradition.
There was music, dancing, worship, vendors selling artisanal goods, and lovers and friends embracing the return to each other’s presence. Part ritual and part marketplace, the Square provided an outlet for survival and resistance, allowing our people to transcend the dehumanizing tactics that oppression used to try to erase our identities.
It has always been in us, not on us, and they could never erase what’s ancestral. Congo Square was the original diaspora link-up. Free and enslaved folks from West Africa, the South, Haiti, and Cuba came together despite language barriers and cultural nuances to embrace the cultural similarities they shared.
These beloved gatherings were the early beginnings of maintaining our Africanisms while co-creating new traditions and inventions like the jazz music birthed in Congo Square. They also help dispel the myth that we’ve forgotten our ancestral roots and remind us of the importance of acknowledging history while celebrating the beauty of the cultures we cultivated.
As the ancestors at Congo Square understood, we must know that when together, we thrive and have the power to impact future generations of our people.