Lecture Series launched by distinguished researcher – Dr. Lisa Aubrey, African-American Scholar and Professor.
“I can’t share with you enough my Thanks for selecting me to be the Feature speaker for the launch of the Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture Series. Kwame has a personal resonance for me. His passion, his fire for all things African, propel me in my quest to give those who suffered in the African Holocaust, dignity, allowing us to re-connect with a part of ourselves that is missing. I thank Trinidad and Tobago for having me here”. Dr. Lisa Aubrey, scholar, professor, activist presented to a packed audience at the Launch of the Emancipation Support Committee’s, Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture Series on Sunday June 26th at the Central Bank Auditorium. Speaking to the theme, Emancipation – Celebrating The Resilience of a People.
She spoke of the Maafa (Ma-AH-fa), or African holocaust. Maafa is a Swahili term meaning great tragedy, and it refers to the death and suffering of Africans as a result of the slave trade and her mission was clear, make Africa real in our lives, a source of self-realization, healing, resilience and empowerment. She drew on her academic expertise and personal experiences to address the profound significance of Africans in the Diaspora re-connecting with their African roots in the heritage lands of Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana and other countries.
‘If you ever get the opportunity to visit any part of Africa, take it. This is not purely for tourism, but rather as a pilgrimage, one which your soul needs’. Dr Aubrey has done extensive work, in archives, in many countries researching the trade of enslaved Africans. As part of this research, she was able to trace nearly 200 slave ship voyages that left the Cameroon territory in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries bound mostly for plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean, including 3 ships thus far to Trinidad. She has even been able to trace the probable ethnicities of the enslaved and their disembarkations, some of which have been traced to Louisiana, where she was born and where she co-organized an Ancestral Burial Ground Veneration and Symposium in an area called Promiseland. She moved from archival research to discovery as her persistence in following leads from the records resulted in her finding a massive slave trading site in Bimbia in Southwest Cameroon, where she has spent most of the last five years. The site was unknown to anyone to whom she spoke in the country at official and non-official levels, since the notorious human trafficking centre had been overgrown by forest for centuries.
Since Bimbia, she has located 4 other points of embarkation of the African enslaved. She is continuing her work with a student research team and is working toward creating an Institute of Slave Trade and Diaspora Research with the support of Roots and Reconnection partner organization Valeurs d’Afrique. Through her work, Bimbia has been recognized and landmarked by the Cameroon government as a National Historic and Heritage Site which is the first of its kind in the country. Today, Dr Aubrey works toward acquiring UNESCO recognition of Bimbia as a World Heritage Site. Dr Aubrey’s writings include: Exposing Cameroon’s Connection to the Transatlantic Slave Trade: Research Impetus, Methodology, and Initial Findings, and various articles on topics such as liberal democracy, race, development, gender-society, the slave trades, and African Diasporan roots and reconnect.
Khafra Kambon, Chairman of the Emancipation Support Committee, in an interview, was high in praise of the commitment of Dr. Aubrey of whose work the committee has been aware for a number of years. “She is playing an important role in exposing at a very personal level a painful history, which has had spiritual and economic impact but which has also demonstrated a phenomenal resilience reflected in the tremendous achievements of many of our people globally. By exposing her students from Arizona State University directly to the work on the ground in Cameroon and therefore to an aspect of their own heritage and doing so with appropriate discussion and sharing of knowledge, she is contributing to the process of healing and rebuilding necessary for all of us who are descendants of the tens of millions of Africans uprooted and enslaved”
Dr Lisa Aubrey shares, “What surprised me was that Cameroonians would tell me stories of their family members, who were taken away in the apocalypse. Some have told me that they have never talked about this family history in public before. Some indicate that they still hold rituals for their family members that were taken away. Others know histories of family members who were killed in the apocalypse. The untold history is rising. I believe, that Bimbia needs to become better known as a historic site, a spiritual site, a sanctuary. ”
There has been little awareness of the significance of Bimbia in the Transatlantic Slave Trade until now. Many African Americans notably Condoleezza Rice, Quincy Jones, Don Cheadle, Spike Lee, Chris Rock, Common, Erykah Badu, Anthony Anderson, Taraji Henson, Blair Underwood and Chris Tucker have traced their ancestral roots and have found DNA links to Cameroon.
Dr. Aubrey is an Associate Professor of African and African American Studies, School of Social Transformation, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU). She teaches courses on politics, development, Diaspora, Africa’s slave trades, democratization, NGOs, civil society, research methodologies, and gender in Africa and the African Diaspora. Dr. Aubrey is also a former Research Associate at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Center for African and Diaspora Affairs (CADA) in Accra, Ghana. As a result of the amazing community-embedded work Dr Aubrey has been travelling back and forth between the USA and several African countries where she organizes institutional collaborations and Africa-Diaspora reconnection pilgrimages.
Dr. Aubrey is also a key actor in a prestigious leadership development program that has brought 30 promising young scholars from African countries to study at Arizona State University (ASU). She is currently a US Fulbright Scholar at the University of Yaounde I in Cameroon (2014-2016) where is teaching courses on Bimbia, working with her colleagues and training and mentoring students. She continues her research as she indicates that 200 slave ships is merely the tip of the iceberg. Dr. Aubrey is also the Founder of the Roots and Reconnection Global African Program, and is the current President of the African Heritage Studies Association.
