Ukweli Kuhusu Ubaguzi Marekani

Ukiwa mweusi Marekani, ukiongelea ubaguzi unaambiwa unafikra za kitmuwa! Unaambaiwa uache kufikiria.  Wewe ni mbaguzi dhidi ya wzungu. Myehudi anaambiwa asisahau yaliyowapata wahenga wake! Khaa!

Hatimaye Watumwa New Hampshire Kuwa Huru! - SI UTANI!

New Hampshire, Marekani  bado kuna ubaguzi kwa weusi.  Wanaongoza kwa uweupe. Kuna siku nilipita huko na mkweche wangu nikieleka Vermont!  State Police kanisimamisha na kuniambia eti nirudi Masssachusetts! Siku nyingine gari ilipinduka huko New Hampshire baada ya kuteleza kwenye barafu. Kuona sisi weusi, Badala ya State Polisi kuuliza kama kuna aliyeumia, kasema, "HEBU ZIMA HIZO %^$&* TAA ZA GARI MNAPOFUA WATU!" KHAA!  Hivyo sishangai kusikia bado kuna watumwa ambao hawakupewa uhuru wao!!!!

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CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - New Hampshire's Senate is voting Thursday whether to honor a 233-year-old petition from slaves seeking their freedom.

   New Hampshire - one of the nation's whitest states - has decided the time is right to consider the request. A Senate committee is recommending the full body posthumously emancipate 14 of the 20 petitioners never granted their freedom.

   Supporters say it is never too late to right a wrong.

   Historian Valerie Cunningham came across the slaves' petition in state archives nearly 30 years ago. It was originally submitted to the New Hampshire General Assembly on Nov. 12, 1779, while the Revolutionary War was still being fought.

   The slaves all served in the war effort and believed the freedom being sought by colonists should be extended to them as well.

The Curious Case of Prof. Gates

ON THE LEFT: Cambridge Police Sergeant and racial profiling instructor, Jim Crowley. On the right, Esteemed scholar of African American History, Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr.

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By Chemi Che-Mponda

By now many people throughout the world have heard of the case of renowned Harvard University Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr., getting arrested in his own home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prof. Gates had just returned home from a trip to China.

The whole thing started on Thursday, July 16, 2009 when one Lucia Whalen, who works down the block on Ware St. where Prof. Gates lives made a 911 call to police. Whalen said that two large black men with backpacks were breaking into the posh Ware St. home. Turns out both were wearing suits and there were three pieces of luggage on the porch. Prof. Gates is small and walks with a cane. Turns out Prof. Gates was the homeowner trying to get into his own home, but had problems because the door was damaged due to a break-in attempt while he was away. Where’ve you been hiding Lucia? Can’t wait to hear the 911 tape of your call! Oh, she's probably away on one of those 'Need to Getaway' Southwest Airlines flights.

So, Sergeant James Crowley of Cambridge police shows up to investigate the break-in at 12:30pm. He sees Prof. Gates and is not satisfied that the older black gentleman is the homeowner. He calls Harvard University police even after Prof. Gates has presented him with an ID with his address on it. Sgt. Crowley didn’t believe that a black man lived in a nice home on ware St.? By now, anyone would be mad too about being disrespected in my own home. According to the officer, Professor Gates started yelling at him that he was a racist ands that’s why he arrested him. Why didn’t Sergeant Crowley just say there had been a misunderstanding and leave? Was he really looking for a confrontation with the Prof.?

Could it really be, that Sergeant Crowley being a Sergeant arrested Prof. Gates, so as not to look bad in the eyes of his junior officers. They say there were ten other officers there.
I say this, when I was a kid I was taught, “Sticks and Stones may Break my bones, but words may never harm me!” In this case words obviously harmed the officer’s pride and he decided to show a force of power.

While Sergeant Crowley may be a teacher of racial profiling, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t practice what he teaches. I have seen white people who have had children with black people, being more negative towards blacks than other racist whites. Sergeant Crowley, has now been nicknamed, ‘Sergeant Jim Crow’ for his actions towards Prof. Gates.

During his arrest, Prof. Gates allegedly told Sergeant Crowley, that “He didn’t know who he was messing with!” Prof. Gates was right indeed, the Sergeant didn’t know. I also find it hard to believe that after 11 years of working Cambridge, Sgt. Crowley didn’t know Prof. Gates by sight. Cambridge isn’t that big and it’s a common sight to see Prof. Gates, walking or driving.

Prof. Gates is a world renowned scholar. He's the preeminent scholar of African American history in the USA and the world. He is highly esteemed and respected. He has done a lot of research on African American history. He has also done a lot to bridge the divide between Africans and Africans in the diaspora. A lot of white people won’t appreciate the magnitude of Prof. Gates works because it was their white ancestors who did their best to erase the African heritage of African Americans. He has uncovered a lot of lost African American history. I bow down in thanks to Prof. Gates for his research. So someone like the bigot Lucia Whalen wouldn’t care to know who her neighbor was, even though I’m sure Harvard magazine has run a lot of articles about him.

The legacy of slavery still haunts America even though we now have the country has it’s first African American President. I have to agree that police acted ‘stupidly’ for arresting a mad inside his own home, even after he had proved that he lived there. And yes, I do think that if Prof. Gates had been Prof. O’Gates/Gatesky (a white man) he would have been treated differently. And I can’t help but ask that if Prof. Gates was really a criminal, wouldn’t he have tried to flee when he saw the police?

And to those taking the police report as bible, what did we expect the guy to write,
“Suspect (Prof. Gates) was polite and cooperative. He showed us valid ID proving that he was in his own home but we arrested him anyway.”? How many times have we heard of falsified police reports so that officers can cover up their blunders. And since when is shouting at anyone in your own home a crime or does it become a crime when an ‘uppity’ black is shouting at a white person? Sorry, but in reality this looks more and more like some kind of power play. “I’m white and you’re black, you better know your place!”

Lastly, let me say that the disrespect shown to President Obama over his comments about the Prof. Gates issue at the press conference last Tuesday are appalling. The comments that some whites have been uttering have been sheer racist. President Obama is the President, yet some white folks have been speaking against him as if he is beneath them. In other words, they are saying in code, “You may be President, but you are still an N-word! How dare you, an N-word, speak against a good old All American White boy! ”. Remember President Obama is a black man and knows first hand the racism that black men have to endure. He has also lived in Cambridge, MA and has probably dealt with some nasty white cops.

I live in Cambridge, MA. I don’t dare leave my house to go to the corner store without my ID. God forbid, something should happen to white person in the vicinity, you will be rounded up. And if you don’t have your ID on you, you get bundled into the paddy wagon, booked, and end up calling someone to please go get your purse with ID in it. Cambridge has this ‘Liberal’ label, yes. At the same time it is a very racist city, the racism exists subtly. The Klan is here but they don’t wear sheets and pointy hats.

To all the angry white folks out there, I say this, paint yourself black for a week and follow your same routine. Then see if you feel the same about this incident. And to those who say black folks need to ‘get over it’, we’ll get over it when racism ceases to exist and we are treated as equals.

You can contact me at chemiche2@yahoo.com

Utalia! Historia ya Utumwa Marekani

This is a photograph showing a group of Plantation Slaves. The photograph was taken on Smith's Plantation, Beaufort, South Carolina. It shows a group of about 30 blacks gathered around a large slave cabin. Photograph is by Timothy O'Sullivan.

Wadau, hii ndo chanzo cha kufuta uafrika kutoka kwa watumwa. Na kama mmewahi kusikia neno lynching (kuua/kunyonga weusi) inatokana na huyo mshenzi Willie Lynch. Alitamka maneo yafuatayo mwaka 1712. Alikuwa anafundisha wazungu wenzake kuwa weusi ni sawa na wanyama, lugha zao zifutwe na pia wawe watu wasio na akili zaidi ya kutmukia wazungu.

Leo nimesikia kuwa kuna wazee hapa Marekani waliofundishwa tangu wadogo imani hizi potofu za Ubaguzi. Wanadhani kweli kuwa eti Obama akichaguliwa kuwa raisi basi itakuwa mwisho wa dunia! Inasikitisha kweli.

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LET'S MAKE A SLAVE

By Willie Lynch, The Origin and Development of a Social Being Called "The Negro"

Let us make a slave. What do we need? First of all we need a black nig-ger man, a pregnant nig-ger woman and her baby nig-ger boy. Second, we will use the same basic principle that we use in breaking a horse, combined with some more sustaining factors. We reduce them from their natural state in nature; whereas nature provides them with the natural capacity to take care of their needs and the needs of their offspring, we break that natural string of independence from them and thereby create a dependency state so that we may be able to get from them useful production for our business and pleasure.

CARDINAL PRINCIPLES FOR MAKING A NEGRO

For fear that our future generations may not understand the principles of breaking both horses and men, we lay down the art. For , if we are to sustain our basic economy we must break both of the beasts together, the nig-ger and the horse. We understand that short range planning in economics results in periodic economic chaos, so that, to avoid turmoil in the economy, it requires us to have breadth and depth in long range comprehensive planning, articulating both skill and sharp perception. We lay down the following principles for the long range comprehensive economic planning:

Both horse and nig-gers are no good to the economy in the wild or natural state.
Both must be broken and tied together for orderly production. For orderly futures, special and particular attention must be paid to the female and the youngest offspring. Both must be crossbred to produce a variety and division of labor. Both must be taught to respond to a peculiar new language. Psychological and physical instruction of containment must be created for both. We hold the above six cardinals as truths to be self-evident, based upon the following discourse concerning the economics of breaking and tying the horse and the nig-ger together... all-inclusive of the six principles laid down above. NOTE: Neither principles alone will suffice for good economics.

All principles must be employed for the orderly good of the nation. Accordingly, both a wild horse and a wild or natural nig-ger is dangerous even if captured, for they will have the tendency to seek their customary freedom, and in doing so, might kill you in your sleep. You cannot rest.

They sleep while you are awake and are awake while you are asleep. They are dangerous near the family house and it requires too much labor to watch them away from the house. Above all you cannot get them to work in this natural state. Hence, both the horse and the nig-ger must be broken, that is break them from one form of mental life to another, keep the body and take the mind. In other words, break the will to resist.

Now the breaking process is the same for the horse and the nig-ger, only slightly varying in degrees. But as we said before, you must keep your eye focused on the offspring of the horse and the nig-ger. A brief discourse in offspring development will shed light on the key to sound economic principles. Pay little attention to the generation of original breaking but concentrate on future generations.

Therefore, if you break the female, she will deliver it up to you. For her normal female protective tendencies will have been lost in the original breaking process. For example, take the case of the wild stud horse, a female horse and an already infant horse and compare the breaking process with two-captured nig-ger males in their natural state, a pregnant nig-ger woman with her infant offspring.

Take the stud horse, break him for limited containment. Completely break the female horse until she becomes very gentle whereas you or anybody can ride her in comfort. Breed the mare and the stud until you have the desired offspring. Then you can turn the stud to freedom until you need him again. Train the female horse whereby she will eat out of your hand, and she will train the infant horse to eat out of your hand also.

When it comes to breaking the uncivilized nig-ger, use the same process, but vary the degree and step up the pressure so as to do a complete reversal of the mind. Take the meanest and most restless nig-ger, strip him of his clothes in front of the remaining male nig-gers, the female, and the nig-ger infant, tar and feather him, tie each leg to a different horse faced in opposite directions, set him afire and beat both horses to pull him apart in front of the remaining nig-gers. The next step is to take a bullwhip and beat both the remaining nig-ger male to the point of death in front of the female and the infant. Don't kill him. But put the fear of God in him, for he can be useful for future breeding.

THE BREAKING PROCESS OF THE AFRICAN WOMAN

Take the female and run a series of test on her to see if she will submit to your desires willingly. Test her in every way, because she is the most important factor for good economics. If she shows any sign of resistance in submitting completely to your will, do not hesitate to use the bull whip on her to extract that last bit of bitch out of her. Take care not to kill her, for in doing so, you spoil good economics. When in complete submission, she will train her offspring in the early years to submit to labor when they become of age.

Understanding is the best thing. Therefore, we shall go deeper into this area of the subject matter concerning what we have produced here in this breaking of the female nig-ger. We have reversed the relationships. In her natural uncivilized state she would have a strong dependency on the uncivilized nig-ger male, and she would have a limited protective dependency toward her independent male offspring and would raise offspring to be dependent like her. Nature had provided for this type of balance. We reverse nature by burning and pulling one civilized nig-ger apart and bull whipping the other to the point of death--all in her presence.

By her being left alone, unprotected, with the male image destroyed, the ordeal caused her to move from her psychological dependent state to a frozen independent state. In this frozen psychological state of independence she will raise her male and female offspring in reversed roles. For fear of the young male's life she will psychologically train him to be mentally weak and dependent but physically strong. Because she has become psychologically independent she will train her female offspring to be psychologically independent as well.

What have you got? You've got the nig-ger woman out front and the ni-gger man behind and scared. This is a perfect situation for sound sleep and soundly, for out of frozen fear, his woman stands guard for us. He cannot get past her early infant slave molding process. He is a good tool, now ready to be tied to the horse at a tender age. By the time a nig-ger boy reaches the age sixteen, he is soundly broken in and ready for a long life of sound and efficient work and the reproduction of a unit of good labor force.

Continually, through the breaking of uncivilized savage nig-gers, by throwing the nig-ger female savage into a frozen psychological state of independency, by killing the protective image, and by creating a submissive dependent mind of the nig-ger male slave, we Have created an orbiting cycle that turns on its own axis forever, unless a phenomenon occurs and reshifts the positions of the male and female savages. We show what we mean by example. We breed two nig-ger males with two nig-ger females. Then we take the nig-ger males away from them and keep them moving and working. Say the nig-ger female bears a nig-ger female and the other bears a nig-ger male.

Both nig-ger females, being without influence of the nig-ger male image, frozen with an independent psychology, will raise their offspring into reverse positions. The one with the female offspring will teach her to be like herself, independent and negotiable (we negotiate with her, through her, by her, and negotiate her at will). The one with the nig-ger male offspring, she being frozen with conscious fear for his life, will raise him to be mentally dependent and weak, but physically strong...in other words, body over mind. Now, in a few years when these two offspring become fertile for early reproduction, we will mate and breed them and continue the cycle. That is good, sound, and long range comprehensive planning.

WARNING: POSSIBLE INTERLOPING NEGATIVES

Earlier, we talked about the non-economic good of the horse and the nig-ger in their wild or natural state; we talked out the principle of breaking and tying them together for orderly production, furthermore, we talked about paying particular attention to the female savage and her offspring for orderly future planning; then more recently we stated that, by reversing the positions of the male and the female savages we had created an orbiting cycle that turns on its axis forever, unless phenomenon occurred, and reshifted the positions of the male and female savages.

Our experts warned us about the possibility of this phenomenon occurring, for they say that the mind has a strong drive to correct and recorrect itself over a period of time if it can touch some substantial original historical base; and they advise us that the best way to deal with this phenomenon is to shave off the brute's mental history and create a multiplicity of phenomenon or illusions so that each illusion will twirl in its own orbit, something akin to floating ball in a vacuum.

This creation of multiplicity of phenomenon or illusions entails the principles of cross-breeding the nig-ger and the horse as we stated above, the purpose of which is to create diversified divisions of labor. The result of which is the severance of the points of original beginning's for each spherical illusion. Since we feel that the subject matter may get more complicated as we proceed in laying down our economic plan concerning the purpose, reason, and effect of cross-breeding horses and nig-gers, we shall lay down the following definitional terms for future generations.

1. Orbiting cycle means a thing turning in a given pattern. 2. Axis means upon which or around which a body turns. 3. Phenomenon means something beyond ordinary conception and inspires awe and wonder 4. Multiplicity means a great number. 5. Sphere means a globe. 6. Cross-breeding a horse means taking a horse and breeding it with an ass and your get a dumb backward ass, long-headed mule that is not reproductive nor productive by itself. 7. Cross-breeding nig-gers means taking so many drops of good white blood and putting them into as many nig-ger women as possible, varying the drops by the various tones that you want, and then letting them breed with each other until the circle of colors appear as you desire.

What means is this: Put the nig-gers and the horse in the breeding pot, mix some asses and some good white blood and what do you get? You got multiplicity of colors of ass backwards, unusual nig-gers, running, tied to backward ass long-hand mules, the one productive of itself, the other sterile. (The one constant, the other dying. We keep the nig-ger constant for we may replace the mule for another tool) both mule and ni-gger tied to each other, neither knowing where the other came from and neither productive for itself, nor without each other.

CONTROLLED LANGUAGE

Cross-breeding completed, for further severance from their original beginning, we must completely annihilate the mother tongue of both the nig-ger and the new mule and institute a new language that involves the new life's work of both. You know, language is a peculiar institution. It leads to the heart of a people.

The more a foreigner knows about the language of another country, to the extent that he knows the body of the language, to that extent is the country vulnerable to attack or invasion of a foreign culture. For example, you take a slave, if you teach him all about your language, he will know all your secrets, and he is then no more a slave, for you can't fool him any longer and having a fool is one of the basic ingredients of and incidents to the maintenance of the slavery system.

(Courtesy Black Arcade Liberation Library; 1970 --Recompiled and reedited by Kenneth T. Spann)

For example if you told a slave that he must perform in getting out 'our crops' and he knows the language well, he would know that 'our crops' didn't mean 'our' crops, and the slavery system would break down, for he would relate on the basis of what 'our crops' really meant. So you have to be careful in setting up the new language for the slave would soon be in your house, talking to you as 'man to man' and that is death to our economic system. In addition, the definition of words or terms are only a minute part of the process. Values are created and transported by communication through the body of the language. A total society has many interconnected value system. All these values in the society have bridges of language to connect them for orderly working in the society. But for these bridges, these many value systems would sharply clash and cause internal strife or civil war, the degree of the conflict being determined by the magnitude of the issues or relative opposing strength in whatever form. For example, if you put a slave in a hog pen and train him to live there and incorporate in him to value it as a way of life completely, the biggest problem you would have out of him is that he would worry you about provisions to keep the hog pen clean, or partially clean, or he might not worry you at all. On the other hand, if you put this same slave in the same hog pen and make a slip and incorporate something in his language whereby he comes to value a house more than he does his hog pen you got a problem. He will soon be in your house.

And the message is still true........
By William Lynch

Gentlemen, I greet you here on the bank of the James River in the year of Lord one Thousand seven hundred and twelve. First. I shall thank you, the gentlemen of the Colony of Virginia, for bringing me here. I am here to help you solve some of your problems with slaves. Your invitation reached me on my modest plantation in the West Indies where I have experimented with some of the newest and still the oldest methods for control of slaves. Ancient Rome would envy us if my program is implemented. As our boat sailed south on the James River, named for our illustrious King, whose version of the Bible we cherish, I saw enough to know that your problem is not unique. While Rome used cords of wood as crosses for standing human bodies along its old highways in great numbers you are here using the tree and the rope on occasion.

I caught the whiff of a dead slave hanging from a tree a couple of miles back. You are not only losing valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slave are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit, you suffer occasional fires, your animals are killed. Gentlemen, you know what your problem[s] are; I do not need to elaborate, I am not here to enumerate your problems, I am here to introduce you to a method of solving them.

In my bag here, I have a fool proof method for controlling your Black slaves, I guarantee everyone of you that if installed correctly it will control the slaves for at least 300 hundred years. My method is simple. Any member of your family or your overseer can use it,

I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves: and I make these differences and make them bigger. I use fear, and envy for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies and it will work throughout the South. Take this simple little list of differences, and think about them. On top of my list is "Age" but it is there only because it starts with an "A"; the second is "Color" or shade, there is intelligence, size, sex, size of plantations, status on plantation, attitude of owners, whether the slaves live in the valley, on the hill, East, West, North, South, have fine hair, coarse hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences, I shall give you an outline of action - but before that I shall assure you that distrust is stronger than trust, and envy is stronger than adulation, respect or admiration.

The Black slave after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self re-fueling and self-generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands.

Don't forget you must pitch the old Black male vs. the young Black male, and the young Black male against the old Black male. You must use the dark skin slave vs. the light skin slaves and the light skin slaves vs. the dark skin slaves. You must use thefemale vs. the male, and the male vs. the female. You must also have your white servants and overseers distrust all Black, but it is necessary that your slaves trust and depend on us, They must love, respect and trust only us.

Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control. Use them. Have your wives and children use them, never miss an opportunity. If used intensely for one year, the slaves themselves will remain perpetually distrustful. Thank you, gentlemen.

Note: This speech was delivered by a white slave owner, William Lynch, on the bank of the James River in 1712.

Watumwa

Wadau, ukienda Bagamoyo kutalii lazima utaonyeshwa 'Fort' amabako watumwa walipelekwa kabla ya kusafirishwa kwenda Zanzibar kabla ya kwenda Arabuni. Huko waliambiwa "bwaga moyo".

Nimeona hi picha ya watumwa na baadhi ya waarabu waliokuwa wanawauza.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/9chapter3.shtml

Familia ya watumwa Marekani - 1862

Familia ya watumwa South Carolina, 1862.

(Picha iko kwenye maktaba ya Library of Congress)

Kuna kitu ambacho nalalamika sana hapa Marekani. Ni kwamba wengi wa waMarekani weusi wamesahau au hawataki kutambua asili yao ya Afrika. Ninfanya utafiti kwa ajili ya screenplay ambayo naandika. Nikaona hii picha iliyopigwa 1862, yaani miaka 146 iliyopita.

Ukitazama vizuri unaweza kusema ni waafrika kabisa. Naona hao walikuwa bado hwajachanganya damu na wazungu. WaMarekani weusi wengi ni weupe weupe shauri ya kuchanganya damu na wazungu. Leo utasikia waMarekani weusi wanatania, "She/He black like coal" Yaani mweusi kama mkaa. Na hao weusi tii wanadhauruliwa ile mbaya.

Kwa nini waMarekani weusi wengi wamechanganya damu? Wazungu walitembea sana na wanawake weusi na kuzaa nao enzi za utumwa. Enzi hizo uliweza kukuta Mzungu (Master) ana familia ya watoto wa kizungu na mke wake, na hapo kwenye backyard kazaa watoto kibao mashombe na mtumwa/watumwa wake. Wengine walitunza hao watoto vizuri kidogo kwa kuwapa nguo na chakula zaidi ya wengine. Master wengine waliona hao watoto sawa na watumwa wengine na kuwauza na kuwapiga na kuwatesa.

Si siri kuwa wazungu walitumia wanawake weusi kwa ajili ya raha zao za ngono na pia kujifunzia habari za ngono. Wanawake weusi wengine waliona sifa kuzaa na wazungu kuliko mweusi mwenzake maana alidhani mtoto atakuwa na maisha bora. Master wengine walisema kuwa wataua wanawake ambao hawazai watoto waliochanganya damu. Kweli ilikuwa balaa enzi hizo.

African Americans Remember their Slave Ancestors

Siku ya jumamozi, 6/9/07) waMarekani weusi walikumbuka mabibi na mababu zao walioibwa kutoka Afrika na kulazimishwa kuingia utumwani. Japo ni wachache waatakaohudhuria ni vizuri kuona wapo wenye moyo wa kukumbuka wahenga.

Watumwa waliteswa na kusihi maisha duni sana huko wakijenga taifa la Marekani. Shukurani yao ilikuwa ubaguzi ambao mapak leo weusi wanaiona Marekani.

Mungu awape nguvu na umoja.

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June 9, 2007 CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- Eighteen years ago, Tony Akeem organized a ceremony in New York City to honor the millions of Africans who died crossing the Atlantic during the slave trade. Similar observances have since spread around the world.

Today , offerings of water, honey and rum were to be poured along the shores of South Carolina and elsewhere for Middle Passage Remembrance Day. The remembrance is held the second Saturday in June.

"We must, we must, honor our ancestors," said Tony Akeem, who has been organizing an observance at Coney Island, N.Y., ever since a 1989 conference on the slave's brutal trip was held at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he works as a photographer.

The observances have spread from Philadelphia to San Francisco and from Brazil to Ghana. Most were started by people who have attended the New York event, Akeem said.

Saturday marked the 10th year South Carolina was participating in the remembrance. As many as 100 people were expected at a Fort Moultrie dock on Sullivans Island near Charleston.
The first slaves arrived in Charleston in 1670, the same year the Carolina colony was created. Historians estimate nearly 40 percent of the millions of slaves brought to what became the United States passed through Charleston. Many others died at sea.

"The stories run pretty strong that there were people who realized they were enslaved and would rather drown than be enslaved and when allowed up on the decks, would just jump into the water," said Fran Norton of the Fort Sumter National Monument, which includes Fort Moultrie. "It commemorates those people who gave up their lives for freedom."

Just how many perished in the slave trade will never be known.

"We know that many died of disease because they were packed in the ships like sardines," said Osei Terry Chandler, a project director at a Charleston education facility who is helping organize the South Carolina memorial.

Participants at the ceremonies in New York and South Carolina planned to drizzle water, rum and honey into the waves Saturday. Some were to toss flowers into the coastal waters. Some were to beat drums.

"Pouring libations is simply to venerate your ancestors," said Bill Jones, who helps organize the Coney Island ceremony. "It gives the ancestors a cool drink of water, or a little bit of gin or a little bit of rum, whatever you pour the libation with.

"In African spirituality we believe we are in constant contact with our ancestors. They are not someplace in heaven, they are right here with us."