African Burial Memorial

The African Burial Memorial was a very significant sight. I felt closer to my ancestors as Dr. Carr did his speech. I also developed a better understanding from the tour guide. All of the symbols and the pyramid contributed as a visual way of understanding. The Pyramid was not completed and the opening was faced towards Africa. There was something important every step of the way. Although I was under the impression that I would not be attending due the malfunctions with the bus, I am happy I was able to join the others in this memorable experience. The movie, after the tour outside, helped me to connect on a more personal note. It was the fact that the movie was a first hand experiment for how slaves buried their loved ones.
Harlem was exhilarating. The New York night life was wonderful. The store contained cheaper items, but their food wasn't so good. The trip in general was a wonderful idea. Even though I found myself being frustrated because of the pase of the bus driver as well as how many times we were lost, I still looked at the bright side that I was fortunate enough to even be accepted to Howard to experience the African Burial sight.  Some of the quotes that surrounding picture captured from the movie grabbed my attention. One of the quotes was "Some of those bones are my fathers' bones And some of those bones are mine.." This specific African Burial ground provided me with information that was hidden from me and I appreciate being able to experience this, especially at Howard University, which contributed to looking at the bones of the bodies.

The African Burial Ground - Kayla Blackburn

I went to the African Burial ground this past weekend on the 23 of October.  I almost didn’t make it on the trip. My roommates and I woke up late at 5:30, took a quick shower, and arrived outside of Crampton right before the buses were pulling off. To my amazement, there were two seats left on the 4^th bus right across from Dr. Carr and Dr. Dana Williams, my two favorite lecturers.

Before arriving to our destination, my mind wondered what waited upon our arrival. I figured that it wouldn’t be a graveyard with tombstones because the graveyard consisted of unmarked graves. But I knew that there were many of our ancestors still buried in the site. When we arrived I saw that it consisted of a memorial and a museum. After passing through the metal detectors, the first thing I saw was a group of about four people standing around two tombs. As I walked closer to the scene I slowly began to realize that the group was not real people. I really liked the exhibit because it looked so realistic. I saw the pain and sorrow in the statues faces. The sorrow that they expressed was sorrow that had been passed from generation to generation. Sorrow that I knew of, but had never felt. One of the speakers summarized what I was thinking when he said that my generation was not one that was close to the African American battle; meaning that we were born too far away from the Civil Rights Movement to fully comprehend the African American struggle.

The African Burial Ground - Tammy

      My experience at the African Burial Ground in New York City had a major impact in how I viewed slavery in relation to modern day times. Usually during history class, one only hears about slavery in the south or mid-atlantic states; however, the African Burial Ground enlightened me about the treatment and jobs of slaves in the northern territories. Although the wind was whipping and the temperature was around 55 degrees, I gained a lot from my experience in New York City.
      The first thing I did when I got the Burial Ground was go inside the museum and watch the documentary about how the Burial Ground came to be. It was amazing to see how so many people around the country, not just blacks, gathered as a united front against the desecration of this historic cite. I couldn't believe that the government was actually going to build over the Burial Ground and actually tried to defend their actions in court. All I could think of during this scene was how differently the government would have reacted if they would have found the remains of Europeans instead of the remains of African slaves. Despite the government's insistence to build a building over the cite, people from across America rallied together and got their sentiments heard in court. They made everyone realize the significance and importance of these bones. The bones were then taken to Howard and scientifically analyzed here. I find it fascinating that Howard seems to play an integral part in major issues in America. If I would have known just how great the legacy is at Howard, there would have been no debating as to which university I was going to attend.
      During the second part of my trip at the African Burial Ground, I listened to the guide as he gave the historical background of the monument built to the slaves buried there. As I walked around the bottom half of the monument and looked around at the various symbols from the different African languages, I was in awe at how beautiful yet literal some the symbols were. Symbols like the Sankofa appeared throughout multiple symbols because Africans and now African-Americans stress the importance of learning for our past and building a better future. Towards the end of our trip our tour leader asked all of us to stand inside of the monument that was built to look like a ship in order for us to understand what it was like to be on a slave ship and feel the lack of space. This was a very powerful experience because it allowed us to get one step closer to our ancestors and feel what they felt as they made the journey to America. Overall, I enjoyed my experience at the African Burial Ground and would love to come back some other day.

Learning Wisdom and the African World Experience

    With the title of this lecture being Learning Wisdom and the African Experience I immediately suspected it was about slavery (again). When Dr. Carr began his lecture I realized he was taking us all the way back before slavery. He was showing us the importance of the African decent. He began the lecture with how Egyptians created writing, which as I began to think I realized that there are way more things that originate in Egyptian that the public may be unaware of. This lecture created in sight on the something more important than slavery, in my eyes, instead of talking of the Africans demeaning slavery experience, he spoke of their accomplishments. African contributed, but the Europeans fought to dehumanize them and make them feel as if they had no history, so they could expose it as f it were their own. In result to this may people may believe the Europeans are to thank for the Africans work.
     Dr. Carr was also a good lecturer. As he spoke, the enthusiasm in his voice caused me to become more attentive. Although he did a wonderful job of getting through as much as the presentation as possible, he spoke very fast and I was unable to write a complete thought without missing something else of the same of more importance. I am not sure what is left to come, but I am more than sure this was the perfect lecture to begin with. It gave me the mind setting of time before slavery which is not a setting my mind was prepared for.

Abandonment, Dismemberment, and Reawakening:The History and Legacy of Howard University

    Dr. Georgia Dunston, located in the Microbiology Department,  began and ended with her introduction slide. She never reached the other slides in the power point. As I listened I felt more connected with her than the previous lecture due to her giving knowledge that wasn't scripted. The lecture was still organized and I would have picked this lecture before the original power point slide.
  When I first heard Dr. Dunston speak the word genome I pulled out my phone and looked the work up. I figured it had something to do with genes, but I wanted to be sure.  When I looked this word up I came with the sum of all information contained in DNA for any living things. Dr. Dunston mentioned genome holds knowledge and that human genome holds energy. The energy disturbance tells us our destiny. This lecture lead me to understand that everyone contains their own genome, which also make people unique in their own way.  She also mentioned that all people derived from Africa stating that it was the motherland.  This point goes back to my blog from last week of stating more this was created in Africa than people are lead to believe. Another thing she mentioned that I touched on last week was blacks within history not knowing their history, which makes it difficult to obtain the truth of their own people. As I watched a clip of a video by Shakbeezy, for a different course, he also stated that the Europeans erased African memory, suppressed African culture, taught white supremacy and controlled institutional socialization to prevent African from educating their children from sending their messages through media. This video actually helped me to understand this lecture so much more. Thank you Dr. Georgia Dunston.

The Final Lecture - Ilesha

This Weeks Lecture was entitled Research and Methodology : Inscription as a Liberating Practice. The lecture was given by Dr. Dana Williams and she was explaining to us how the lectures were given to us relate to our research and how we were to construct our project.

Honestly I never knew how these lectures would relate to our research so I never found the point of sitting in class and blogging other than getting a grade. Dr. Williams cleared that up for me.

Not to my knowledge and the other students as well, we were actually part of a research project that was being conducted by the COAS department. The primary objectives were for us to identify the principal components of research and to relate these components to our group projects. The related objectives were to show the relation of the previous lecture to our group projects and to review the previous weeks' lectures to reaffirm this relationship. They were trying to find an effective way of giving us information and for us to be able to retain this information for future knowledge .

Dr. Williams reminded us of our research topic which was In what ways is knowledge generated by various fields of study used to develop solutions to human social problems and challenges? Then she went on to explain to us the basic components of research which are as follows:
1. Statement of The Problem or Challenge
- Consider the purpose
 Consider reasonable questions


2. What is the Current State of Your Research
- What has already been said
- What is new
-What information is needed to complete the research


3. Methodology (how we approach our research)
- Conceptualize a research design
- Determine a method of collecting data
- Disciplinary approach


4. Frame Work
- How will we structure our projects
- How will we display our data


5. Development of our thesis


6. Conclusion


I can see that just like in English, we have to develop a thesis for our project.
Then Dr. Williams explained their research to us which gave us an example of what we should do for our projects. These six components will definitely give my group as well as myself an outline to follow when we conduct our research to find out how our majors will help solve problems in the future.

Freshman Seminar - Ilesha (10/6/10)

The lecture from October 6th, was entitled Omoluabi: Self Actualization and Communal Responsibility and was given by Dr. Segun Gbadagesin. Dr. Gbadagesin started off his lecture by paying homage (or ijuba) to certain people before and after him. For example as young adults we need to pay homage to our parents because with out them, we wouldn't be the young adults we are today. Furthermore, Dr. Gbadagesin suggested we pay homage to the people in ours lives and each other more often.

Next Dr. Gbadagesin told us the story of Iwa. Iwa in yoruba means existence and character. In the story Iwa was Orunmilas wife. Orunmila in yoruba means the god of wisdom. The story of Iwa tells us how Orunmila mistreated Iwa by putting her down saying she could not cook well or sweep well. He stressed out Iwa and in turn, Iwa left. When Iwa left, everything Orunmila had, he lost because of the way he treated Iwa. In Despiration, Orunmila looked for Iwa. When finding her, Orunmila begged Iwa to come back and he gave her a second chance.

The Moral of This story is if you lose your Iwa (your character), you will lose everything. In other words, if you lose you character or your being you lose your materialistic things as well.

Dr. Gbadagesin then goes on to talk about some religious figures we know like Socratese, Plato, Moses, and Jesus Christ. He said before these figures there were The goddess Ma'at, Vizier Ptahotep, and Pharoah Amenemope. In relation, before there were the 10 Commandments, The Sharia or Kents Groundwork, there were Coffin Text, Principles or Ma'at, The book of Instructions, and The Pyramid texts.

The Principles of Ma'at tought ancient Egyptians truth and how to maintain justice order, balance, and harmony. These codes that the ancient Egyptians lived by helped form and shape their society. It also could be considered the confessions of the innocence of people.

Coffin texts told of the principles of reward and punishment in the afterlife and were written in the tombs of nobles. Coffin texts were said to give moses the inspiration for the 10 commandments.

Dr. Gbadagesins whole lecture was to teach us that our character and being is very important in our lives. Furthermore that our wisdom should be to benefit others and not just ourselves which was stated in a previous lecture given by Dr. Carr. I know from experience in my 17 years that your character is important not just for yourself but for others around you. The way you carry yourself is very important and if you do not have good character and carry yourself well you will lose everything and there have been times where I have lost myself but I to catch it and turn it back around. Dr. Gbadagesins lecture was very informal and i enjoyed it.