Emancipation Day Program
November 4, 2 pm
Greenbelt Cinema, 129 Centerway

The Greenbelt Black History and Culture Committee, in collaboration with Greenbelt Cinema, is hosting a program to commemorate Maryland Emancipation day, featuring a FREE showing of the film Descendants.  Descendants is about the last Africans who were brought illegally from Dahomey, West Africa, to Alabama. After the Civil War, they founded Africa Town. Zora Neale Hurston's seminal anthropological project, Barracoon, was the story of Oluale Kossola, the last survivor of the transatlantic era of African enslavement.

Following the film, please join us for a discussion and Q&A with descendants of the enslaved. Evelyn Milton, one of their descendants, will provide updates on what is happening now with Africa Town and the finding of the ship Clotilda, which brought the Africans from Dahomey. Mélisande Short-Columb, a second descendant from the 272 enslaved people sold by the Jesuits to save Georgetown University, will also be present to provide updates and answer questions. Mélisande Short-Colomb’s show, Here I Am, is an internal exploration of her ancestors’ past and its impact on her identity.

Contact blackhistoryandculturegb@gmail.com for more information.

Sponsored by: Greenbelt Recreation, Greenbelt Black History and Culture Committee, RUAK, and Greenbelt Cinema.