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Roots of the Current Revival
The current African cultural revival in North America is a testimony to the enduring strength of African cultures, with roots lying in the basic human right and desire of African North Americans to know who they are and to be themselves in their own distinctive ways…. Much of this consciousness is translated into finding African identity, mostly the history and culture of Africa, as a fundamental objective in the search for liberation….The current cultural revival is therefore fundamentally rooted in the African struggle in North America for cultural freedom against genocide and other forms of White supremacy. It is the expression of a struggle that was ignited by the enforced presence of Africans in North America and has raged from the very beginning of that aspect of the African presence on this continent. Historically, there have been ebbs and flows in this drive for history, identity, and cultural expression….
Scope of the Current Revival
Perhaps the most influential development underlying the current cultural revival has been the continuation, intensification, and culmination of debates regarding the identity of African people in North America, who have struggled to retain both the power to define themselves and the ability to acquire all or most of the relevant facts that empower them to make informed decisions in this most important matter. Africans defined themselves as African upon their arrival in North America and for several generations thereafter. However, capitulation, accommodation, and continuing resistance to White supremacy has occasioned transformations in terms, as negro (and its more overtly racist variations such as nigger, nigga, niggar, etc.) became brown, colored, black, Afro-American, and finally again African American, African Canadian, and African Mexican, or just African. The continually shifting terminology reflects a struggle for identity and so for ideology and worldview. The full circle from African to African illustrates the triumph of the determination to repossess the self and redevelop an identity that is truthful, authentic, and independent of White supremacist and other external influences.Almost every aspect of the current African cultural revival in North America is in some respect an affirmation and deepening of African cultural identity. The distinguishing features of this revival include a determination to (re)possess and (re)incorporate knowledge and understanding of the social history of African peoples into the construction of African identity in North America, including all the journeys of Africans through space and time, as well as the content of African society, cosmology and cosmogony, psychology, sociology, languages, and other aspects of African cultures. This can include a reconstitution of old elements to produce “new” forms expressing ancient principles. Current expressions such as Kwanzaa, the practice of pouring libation, and creative naming practices are more obvious examples of this inventiveness based on authentic traditional principles. However, almost every aspect of the current revival demonstrates some form of this process of reinvention and renewal, which is the norm in any healthy culture.
-Kimani S. K. Nehusi, African Cultural Revivals from The Sage Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America
