Sunjata Lion King OpEd Richmond Times Dispatch by Dana and Robin (2012)
The Lion King lives in the schools of Richmond, Virginia
By: ROBIN POULTON, DANA WIGGINS in the Richmond Times Dispatch
Published: September 19, 2012
World-famous musician Cheick Hamala Diabate will sing the praises of the Lion King at Virginia Commonwealth University on Saturday. There is a link between Richmond and the lion king — not the Disney cartoon, but the true African story of Prince Sunjata Keita, who lost his throne as a child and returned in 1235 to create the Mali Empire. Many Richmonders came from there. The ancestors buried in Richmond's African Cemetery (at the junction of Broad Street and 15th Street) were Malians and — in the mid-1700s — not yet Americans.
In 1865, fully 630 years after Sunjata wrote his constitution, freed black Americans came to camp under the protection of the Union army in Richmond on land that is now Virginia Union University. They called their camp "Gorée" after the West African slave island, the last piece of Malian soil their ancestors had trodden. Soon after that, they began to build Jackson Ward. This explains why all third-grade and sixth-grade students in Virginia study Mali as a Standard of Learning in history and civics. In support of this SOL, Virginia Friends of Mali founded its program "Teaching Timbuktu" — named for the famous Islamic university city that is the northern capital of modern Mali. VFoM is a 501(c)(3) charity working for education.
The Mali SOL was created in 2003 by the Virginia Department of Education to promote understanding of our African cultural heritage. In 2005 came an invitation from Mali for Richmond to become the sister city of Segou, an old riverside capital city like Richmond. Segou is situated on the banks of the Niger, Africa's third-greatest river. A formal agreement was signed in October 2010 by Mayor Dwight Jones of Richmond and Mayor Ousmane Simaga of Segou. Since then the cities have worked together on education, health and economic exchanges, and numerous musicians have played in their music festivals: In the past four years Virginia musicians the Old Time Hill Folk, Seth Swingle, and Heather Maxwell's Afrika Soul have played at the Segou Festival, while Cheick Hamala Diabate, Vieux Farka Touré and Bassékou Kouyaté's Ngoni Ba have all played in Richmond.
In February 2012, Segou opened a maternity clinic and three blocks of latrines, built with support from Sister Cities International. The work was jointly supervised by Segou's mayor and by VFoM: Former Christian Children's Fund Vice President Michelle Poulton and former Peace Corps volunteer Dana Wiggins both visited the sites. Working in West Africa changes the life-vision of any American woman. Malians have great dignity and beauty, but they lack many things we take for granted. When you pull your water from a well, washing clothes and dishes takes on a new meaning: You don't waste water! We know many Malian women who have lost babies in childbirth or from sickness, emphasizing life's fragility. In Africa, death is truly a part of daily life.
Virginia has received so much from Africa: Most of our music (rock, jazz, soul, blues, rap) has African roots; our family values and Virginian front porches are African; so too are foods like hush puppies and doughnuts, fried chicken and peanut butter, okra and gumbo.
We celebrate Mali's National Day every year in Richmond on Sept. 22. This year there will be Malian food and Malian music in the VCU Commons at 907 Floyd Ave., where a real Malian Griot will play music from 6 until 8 p.m. The afternoon will see lectures and panel discussions on Malian history and culture, and a book-signing honoring Malian women. Mali's ambassador to Washington, Al-Maamoun Baba Lamine Keita, will visit our city, and he will speak around 6 p.m. He will also present awards to two key figures in the Richmond-Segou sister city relationship: Ana Edwards, VFoM president, and VCU French professor Patricia Cummins, vice chair of Richmond's Sister City Commission.
This party offers a chance to meet former Peace Corps volunteers and other Richmonders who have visited or lived in Mali. People following West African politics will know that there is trouble in Timbuktu right now: an intrusion by al-Qaida to grow rich from the drug trade, aided by weapons from Libya. On Saturday, we welcome you to hear about the Lion King, and also the latest on the imminent threat of war in the Sahara — war in Timbuktu.
____________________________________________
Robin Poulton is professor of French West African Studies at the VCU School of World Studies (affiliate), and may be contacted at poultonrobin@gmail.com. Dana Wiggins is a former Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, and may be contacted at danawiggins@gmail.com. Both are members of Virginia Friends of Mali.