Festival of European Films

The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library. Find more at: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/ Available through a partnership with Scroll down to read the article. IMPRESSIONS OF DETROIT City Where Dreams About America Die First AKINTAIWO From the Detroit Institiute of Arts, courtesy of Romare Howard Bearden Foundation Soldiers and Sailors Monument he Black brother stands at the that ruled over the people of Israel, street corner, wailing as if he is Detroit's African-American community The Mother of the Civil Rights upset in the mind. Another has played a pivotal role in many events Movement herself, Rosa Parks is also T that have shaped America's culture and roams around the nearby petrol station, from Detroit. She reminds you of asking for alms. Yet another stands in history. Nigeria's Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome- the midst of moving traffic, hawking Kuti, the iconoclast female opposition the Final Call newspaper. Here and Ever heard of 'the real McCoy'? Elijah leader who warred against traditional there a dot of White faces in a city of McCoy was the 19th century inventor chauvinism and colonial exploitation. abandoned houses and homeless whose high-quality craftsmanship of Rosa Parks it was who ignited the historic people. Detroit, America's border city seventy-eight inventions sparked the Montgomery bus boycott when she of cars has bumpy, patched-up roads phrase. He was from Detroit. Joe Louis refused to give up her seat to a White like the sub-water-ways of Lagos of the 'Brown Bomber' fame was also person. metropolis. the world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949, victories which were a In the field of music is Aretha Franklin, Is this America the great, the country symbol of American pride and honour the acclaimed queen of soul. She also of dreams? Is this the industrial during the Second World War period. grew up in Detroit area, singing in her America, the model state of aspirations? How mighty the Black community has Reverend father's church until show Majek Fashek sang about it in his So been! business finally beckoned to her. When Long, Too Long. He saw beggars and you think of people like Ebenezer Obey, hawkers of the American dream and he Time would still permit us to mention Shina Peters, Simeon Adebo, Ernest was bewildered. Men may still escape Dr. Ralph Bunche who as a United Shonekan, Olusegun Obasanjo and the to her shores, but may her streets never Nations mediatorduring the Arab-Israel Ransome- (Anikulapo-) Kutis and their kill their dreams. war of 1948 won the Nobel Peace Prize home city, Abeokuta, and examine their in 1950. Coleman A. Young, Detroit's contributions to the history and culture first elected African-American mayor of Nigeria, the story of Detroit in Like the biblical Bethlehem which was in 1973 was a civil rights and labour America would have been well the least among the princes of Judah movement activist. understood. but nevertheless produced a governor 33 Whether one talks about America's for one African-American family from underground railroads, the automotive enslavement through the 1930s, industry, labour unions, the civil rights demonstrating how rural southern movement, religion, politics, music and African-Americans raised crops, the arts, Detroit's African-American livestock and faced up to everyday tasks. community, home to the largest Life on industrial plantation and the concentration of Blacks outside ingenuity and courage it took to escape continental Africa, has greatly from slavery is shown on the Hermitage influenced the course of the American Slave House. The Village also houses life. the George Washington Carver Memorial. It has a permanent exhibition As a people of beauty, the present and about American industrial history titled past is lived and re-lived aesthetically. Made in America. Not less than ten museums grace Detroit, all offering a variety of permanent and Other notable museums are Your changing exhibitions illustrating the Heritage House, Detroit Historical Aretha Franklin. history and culture of African- Museum, National Museum of the Americans. On Frederick Douglass Tuskegee Airmen, The Black Cinema Boulevard is the Museum of African Gallery, International Jazz Museum, History which is dedicated to educating African-American Heritage Cultural the general population about the Black Centre and American Black Artist man's struggle for freedom and dignity. Museum. The internationally famous Its permanent exhibition titled An Epic Motown Records is also in Detroit, of Heroism: The Underground making it a big cultural, centre in Railroadin Michigan, 1837-1870 offers America. a moving portrayal of life in Africa, the Middle Passage, life in America during Africa may well shape up if she knows slavery, and the escape to freedom in what her children in the Diaspora think the northern United States and Canada. of 'home'. The romanticization of Africa's glorious past may indeed be On its own part, Motown Historical therapeutic to the souls of the children ja Parks Museum is filled with rare photographs, who couldn't vintage clothing, memorabilia and accurately trace artefacts recapturing the history and their roots. Many legacy of this era in American music. of them have Popular artistes like Michael Jackson, rejected their Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder. Marvin English names Gaye and The Temptations recorded and adopted their first hits in the Museum's studio African names known as Hitsville U.S.A. which they can't pronounce well The Detroit Institute of Arts on and whose Woodward Avenue exhibits famous meaning they African-American artists like Romare may not even Bearden and Charles McGee and houses know. extensive collections of works from ancient cultures including Greece, Rome At the shrine of and Egypt in more than one hundred the Black galleries. Madonna, I came across 'fellow There is the Henry Ford Museum and brothers' who Greenfield Village which features the look so much like Matton House and the Hermitage Slave me. I stopped House. The Matton House explores life Short Of speaking Some participants at the last African World Festival in Detroit. 34 my 'home' language to them. Coming inside their bookstore and galleries, I was awed. What with the array of African crafts, arts, clothes and musical instruments like drums, even gangan Africa may weft shape up if and sekere which they call calabash. For twenty-two years, we learnt, this she Iqwws what her chtidrtn bookstore (the largest African-American in the 'Diaspora thin^of bookstore in the country) has offered an array of Afrocentric items from the world 'home'. over, including fabrics like kente clothes, ties, belts, leather goods and old rare pieces. Browsing through the collection Hurston, Gloria Naylor, Alice Walker, confirmed the assertion. All known Langston Hughes, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe books Ayi Kwei Armah and Ama Ata Aidoo. are there. Ditto for Amos Tutuola' s The Other books are on religion, Black Palm Wine Drinkard and Festus Iy ayi' s theology, music, dance, literature, Heroes. Zainab Alkali and Buchi history, biography, arts, revolution and Emecheta were not left out. nutrition. One could know so much about Africa without once stepping on Opening a book jointly written by Chris the African Soil. And we thought to Stapleton and Chris May titled African ourselves, 'They read what we live.' Rock: The Pop Music of A Continent, They would also want to experience this writer was elated to read about what we detest. It is the nature of the Nigerian musicians. The Afrobeat and world that men must continually move. Afro-pop section features Fela and Tony Where we are going is where others are Allen, Sonny Okosuns, OnyekaOnwenu coming from. amongst others while Sunny Ade, Ebenezer Obey, Dele Abiodun and The famous Broadway Theatre is around Segun Adewale graced the juju pages. thecorner, Sunny Ade and Sikiru Ayinde Apala, sakara and fuji pages have Haruna Barrister had performed there before. Ishola, Ayinde Barrister and Gasper There are other concert venues apart Lawal, a Nigerian percussionist resident from this. Detroit Repertory Theatre, in the United Kingdom, as stars. The Chene Park Music Theatre, Fox Theatre This boxer welcomes you to Detroit book discusses the background, style and Gem Theatre amongst and profiles of music from West Africa others are around. Works and especially Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, places of arts in Detroit can Mali, Gambia, Guinea, Senegal, neverfully be explored. They Cameroon and Cote d'lvoire with can just be glimpsed through. singers like E. T. Mensah, Prince Nico Mbaga, Pat Thomas, Manu Dibango, But does the rich heritage Osibisa, Salif Keita and Musa Suso mean so much to the average amongst others. We didn't see this book American Black? Many still in Nigeria. Christopher Alan Waterman, live below the poverty level once a juju musician in Nigeria, has while the money made in the another book basically on juju music city is used to develop the titled Juju: A Social History and suburb where the whites live. Ethnography of An African Popular Ask yourself what the Music. sublime aspiration of a society is and you would There are books by, and on, Toni remain a philosopher! IGRl Hitsville, USA Morrison, Richard Wright, Zora Neale.

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