This year\u2019s African American Cultural Celebration at the N. C. Museum of History focused on how the traditions brought by enslaved Africans still impact the state.<\/b>
\nBlack History Month kicked off Saturday as thousands of people packed the N. C. Museum of History to learn more about African and African-American culture and history.
Musical and spoken word performances, panel discussions, and arts and crafts helped attract more than 5,000 people by mid-Saturday afternoon to the museum\u2019s 17th annual African American Cultural Celebration. The theme of this year\u2019s celebration was \u201cFrom Africa to the Americas,\u201d tracing how the culture the enslaved Africans brought to the New World continues to affect African-Americans today.
\u201cWe\u2019re really emphasizing what I call the \u2018African retention,\u2019 \u201d said Michelle Lanier, executive director of the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission. \u201cThe cultural traditions and history that kind of illuminate the connection of the people from the continent of Africa and the people who are of African descent here on North Carolina soil.\u201d
The N. C. African American Heritage Commission has created a website, www.aahc.nc.gov, that will go live Feb. 1 when Black History Month officially starts.
From the literature to the food to the music and dance and in many other ways, Lanier said the state was heavily affected by the African diaspora.
For instance, culinary historian Justin Robinson pointed to how common Southern foods such as rice, black-eyed peas and okra came to North America because slaveholders were trying to feed their new slaves from West Africa what they were accustomed to eating.
\u201cThese black-eyed peas that I eat all the time and my mom ate and her mother ate and her mother ate, is an unbroken chain that links us directly back to West Africa,\u201d Robinson said.
Lanier, who attended Robinson\u2019s panel, told the crowd that learning about the history \u201callows us to tear down these negative stereotypes around our food and shame around our food.\u201d
Lanier pointed to how frying food like chicken was an ancestral food preservation technique and eating watermelons helped keep people hydrated as they worked outside in the heat.
\u201cIt was part of the brilliance of our ancestors,\u201d she said.
Malcolm Beech, president of the United States Colored Troops Association, came with around 20 re-enactors to educate the crowd about the pivotal role African-American soldiers played in the Civil War.
\u201cA lot of times people just don\u2019t think there was anybody from North Carolina that fought with the Union,\u201d he said. \u201cThere were 6,000 U. S. colored troops from North Carolina that fought with the Union.\u201d
The event attracted a number of African-American families.
This year\u2019s celebration was the third one attended by Melina Mitchell of Durham. She brought her 11-year-old daughter, Joceyln Coleman.
\u201cWe\u2019re still learning different things about our culture,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cI want her to know where she came from and how far we\u2019ve come and how much more we\u2019ve got to go.\u201d
Jocelyn, a sixth-grade student at Lowe\u2019s Grove Middle School, said learning about her heritage will help her toward her goal of going to college.
\u201cI want to learn about my heritage and history,\u201d she said.
But the event also brought people from other racial and ethnic groups. Rose Railey of Bahama in Durham came with her husband and son to learn more about how slaves used the Underground Railroad network in Halifax County to escape to freedom.
\u201cI like to learn more about black history and U. S. history,\u201d Railey said. \u201cThe Underground Railroad tells the story of all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

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