Fambul Tik, a heritage experience organization that promotes the links between Gullah Geechee people and Sierra Leone, will host four webinars each Saturday during Black History Month in February.
Each two-hour webinar will begin at 2 p.m. on the Fambul Tik Sierra Leone Facebook page. The events include:
Old Yagala, An African Show of Resistance in Africa
Feb. 4: Historian Joseph Opala will discuss the period of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade when a group of Africans, in what is now modern-day Sierra Leone, sought refuge from slave invaders on a mountaintop.
Priscilla’s Legacy: Breaking the 1865 Genealogy Brick Wall
Feb. 11: A documentary film will tell the story of a 10-year-old Susu girl who was taken from Sierra Leone in 1756 and sold into slavery in Charles Towne. She was later named Priscilla. An unbroken trail of paper evidence consisting of a slave ship, slave auction and plantation records connect the girl to Thomalind Martin Polite of North Charleston.
The Language You Cry In: Connected to Africa Through an Ancient Song
Feb. 18: This documentary film depicts a funeral song in the Mende language of Sierra Leone, which is the longest text in an African language preserved by a Black family in North America, scholars said. The song has been kept for more than two centuries by a family in Georgia and a family in Sierra Leone.
Black Seminoles: A Show of Resistance in America
Feb. 25: A small group of Gullah people resisted plantation life and ran away from plantations in South Carolina and Georgia into Spanish Florida where they sought refuge. In 1835, they resisted again by going to war with the U.S. military. A group of them were later forced west to Oklahoma. Some of them escaped to Nacimiento, Mexico, before others settled in Texas.
To receive the Zoom link for each webinar, contact Fambul Tik’s founder Amadu Massally at amadu.massally@fambultik.com or visit facebook.com/fambultiksierraleone. Fambul Tik, a grassroots cultural organization, is based in Dallas, Texas.
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