Lakeview residents gathered at the Lakeview Public Library on Saturday for the library’s annual Black History Month celebration, led by the Nassau County Guardians. The event was organized by the library and the Guardians to bring people together.
“I want you to understand that this is our time,” County Legislator Carrie Solages, who represents Lakeview, said. “The time to emphasize the importance of Black history, the importance of the contributions that we have made to this town and to this great country.”
Solages also introduced the Guardians. “I would like to thank our Guardian Association for playing a very important role when it comes to public safety here in Nassau County,” Solages said. “The Guardians play a very important role as a bridge between law enforcement and our communities.”
The county Guardians Association is a fraternal organization whose members work with county law enforcement agencies. It is dedicated to encouraging the African-American community to be the conscience of the criminal justice system.
Guardians President Brendan Gibbs and library Director Camina Raphael-Lubin welcomed attendees to the program. This year’s presentation was “Griots in Concert,” performed by Linda Humes and Hasan Bakr. Griot is a West African term for a storyteller, poet or oral historian.
“It is truly our pleasure to be here to celebrate Black History Month with you,” said Humes, the founder of Yaffa Cultural Arts Inc., an arts organization headquartered in Harlem that encourages education, community building and self-actualization. Specializing in telling stories aligned with the West African tradition of jeli, she aims to inspire and motivate through storytelling. Humes also serves as a doctoral lecturer in Africana Studies at John Jay College, and chairs the Education Committee for the National Association of Black Storytellers.
As part of the program, master drummer Bakr played the djembe, a traditional West African percussion instrument that is known for its wide, versatile sound range — from deep bass to high-pitched slaps — achieved by striking different parts of the drum head.
The pair shared stories and songs from various countries, from Ghana to Jamaica, before inviting the audience to participate in a tradition from the United States. Sea Island and its neighboring barrier islands, off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, are the wellspring of Gullah Geechee culture, which was created by enslaved West Africans brought to work on rice and cotton plantations in the region. African traditions, trades and a distinct language are highlights of Black History there.
“You have groups of African people that held on to their culture, their food, their language,” Humes said of the Gullah. “Not only did they hold on to their rhythms and melodies, they were influenced by some other music forms — blues, country — and which helped form another music from a group called Ranky Tanky.”
Ranky Tanky is a Grammy-winning group that plays vibrant, jazz-influenced music that blends with traditional Gullah, which is itself influenced by blues, gospel and other West African traditions. The band’s name translates to “get funky” or “work it” in the Gullah dialect.
Humes and Bakr invited attendees to get involved in the music by handing out instruments and teaching a dance to accompany their songs.
Humes wrapped up the program by sharing some Black history. She told the attendees about Augustus Jackson, an African-American confectioner known as the Father of Ice Cream, and John Standard, an African-American inventor who revolutionized kitchen technology by patenting significant improvements to the refrigerator and oil stove in the late 19th century.
“Our history has been erased in a truly demonic way,” Humes said. “Even those of us who might have received a little portion of Black history in school, it’s still not enough.” She emphasized the importance of adults’ actively informing their children about Black history and its impacts on the world.
“You tell them your stories, then you tell them our stories,” she said. “There’s no way that the young people can take the baton and make this world better if they don’t know what happened.”
To end the program, Bakr invited the attendees to join him in singing “One Love,” by Bob Marley.
