The above spend our tax dollars every day. That museum is a symbol of the life blood of the African in America. We too often forget that you are trying to cloak us in European values and concepts; your editorial is based on your cultural premises. Just because we speak English and act like European, we are not necessarily being truthful with you: for example, the name African-American, those concepts( African and American) are so far apart until they are back to back. One was enslaved by the other, one has a one god concept the other had thousands of gods.

The mask over the entrance is from Mali's Bamana people, worn by young initiates of the Ndomo Association, one of six men's organizations who honor the dieity Kore. This mask represents an African system of thought and psychology based on animism, magic, divination, mythology, ancestor worship, nyame, totemism, secret societies, etcâ€|
The enclosed glass dome is a traditional African house with no square corner, no beginning and no end, an African concept.

If you were to look at the outside of the building you will see Adinkra symbols from the Akan of Ghana, which shows that we were communicating with pictograms, ideograms and other symbolism. There are other symbolism in this edifice. This building is saying, "I am not a European". On the outside of the builiding there is the circle enclosing a dot, an ancient African symbol representing our ancestors.

That museum is a physical reminder of our fight for mental freedom; it stretched back to the first African captured and put on a European ship. Fighting to stay in Africa. Some of us jumped off the ships , and after getting here we fought to get back home. Our spirits were broken, our manhood and womanhood altered and we were forced to survive under the worst form of inhumane treatment ever.

At some point we accepted the situation that was before us and like the chameleon we blended in, but that which made us, Ashanti, Fulani, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Dogon, Luba, etc... was untapped and is still alive within us psychologically and spiritually, deep in our genetic pool, lying dormant, waiting to emerge.

That museum holds the key. Yes, I know there are those who will say "I am not a Baule, Akan, Asante, Baga, Bamum, Chokwe, Kongo, Dogon, Fang, etc...and "I don't know anything about Africa, I was born in America". My answer is ignorance and denials don't mean that we are not African people and also the passage of time can't deny us that fact either.

The museum's mission has not had the time to mature or develop. You must know that our story is perhaps an oral history, most of our three dimensional items are in European museums like the DIA.

I know that the museum is committing to presenting exhibitions, publications,public programming and it serves as a resource center directing its energies to serving schools, teachers, researchers and the general public.

We know that the issue of African art has not been adequately addressed to ensure our children are exposed to a point that they will ask questions about our ancestors. African children should be exposed to their own cultural in our museum, like African children are exposed to European culture daily in European museums.

Let me remind you why that building exists. In the 1960's it opened its doors on West Grand Boulevard and Warren. It must be pointed out that prior to 1965 in the US and Detroit, there were museums dedicated to the arts and sciences and to local and national history. Many of these museums were maintained by city, county or state and federal funds, others were privately endowed.

The nature and scope of these museums ranged from the very comprehensive to the very specialized. Yet there were no major institutions to house artifacts and to record the achievements, failures and the true fact of the contributions of the Africans to the discovery, pioneering, development and continuance of America. This is further evidenced by the lack of information that is presented and recorded in textbooks and mass communications.

During the sixties and seventies all over America, Africans opened museums with two primary objectives. First, to preserve the cultural heritage of African people and second, to foster a greater awareness abut the culture of Africans in American primarily and African people in general.

The first of these museums opened in Chicago, the second opened here in Detroit in 1965. Some of the European museums and cultural institutions are presenting programs directed at the African community. That's ok, but we have decided to collect, interpret and display our own story. I would also like to say that one European museum has cleverly convinced a group of Negroes to come aboard and house our visual artist artifacts in their house. Again, two ideas so far apart that they are back to back. I wonder whose philosophy that collection will reflect-- African or European?

It is often forgotten that when the Europeans emerged and began to extend themselves into the bbroader world of African and Asia, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they (Europeans) went on to colonize most of mankind. It was during the colonialization process that the material culture of the African, ancestral shrines, adornments, carvings etc.., were often physically destroyed at the behest of the European. Later, they (Europe) would colonize world scholarship, mainly in the writing of history.

History was then written to show or imply that Europeans were the only creators of what could be called a civilization. In order to accomplish this, the Europeans pretended to forget all they previously knew about Africa.

When the trading in Africans was getting effectively underway, some Europeans were claiming parts of Africa, especially Egypt, as an extension of their continent and their culture. During this period, most history books were written to justify the trading in Africans, the colonial system that followed and the institution of racism.

This alone should suggest to you that something is wrong. We speak English, worship in European churches while saturating ourselves in a culture based upon a European value system. But you don't want us to have a building that we have designated as the icon for preserving our story in America.

Are you advocating the continued miseducation or training of African people? For you to try and relegate this museum into a budget line item shows your insensitivity and ignorance.

It was in 1926 that Carter G. Woodson founded "Negro History Week". He was concerned with the lack of information available on the contributions that African people had made to the development of world civilization. Woodson was involved in extensive research of our story and he felt that our children should know about people like Hannibal, Lockman, Esop, Amenhotep etcâ...

Woodson's insight was visionary. We now recognize the importance of our story being taught to instill pride, to give courage to face social handicaps in this country today, to stimulate the child toward greater achievement and to acquaint the child with what part the African has taken in the building of America, and to teach the child of the fundamental ideas of his American citizenship with all its rights, privileges and responsibilities.

Why is it? That you decided to attack the museum, you know you had a choice! I think the management has done a great job and to have had 40,000 visitors in one year is a milestone. For us, at this point in time , 40,000 is not poorly attended--remember most Africans in this city/county think and act like Europeans. This is not a complant but an ovation that the museeum is not there to change but to remind us from which we came--not from Europe but from Africa.

I must remind you that the foundation of the majority of European museums was financed indirectly and sometimes directly by money from the enslaving of Africa.

One thing I know from reading and studying your history is that it didn't include my story. We can't afford the luxury of having others keeping our story. We tried it for over 400 years and if I am not mistaken it didn't work.

Do not fool yourself into thinking we are excited about the "building" that's on Warren Avenue. We are not, it's the ideas, the concepts, the reality that it excites. When it was on West Grand Boulevard we felt the same way about it.

That building is special; it represents the gateway back to our future which lies in Africa. You are saying that Columbus discovered America, ignoring the fact that Africans were here 3,000 years before Columbus.

You have glossed over the part we played in the development and continuity of America. You neglected to point out the large array of inventions by Africans to the train, automobile industry and other areas. You are the same man who rewrote Egyptian History. You pretended to have forgotten about all the early accomplishments of Africans before the arrival of the European on the land called Africa.

Olayame Dabls
Executive Director
MBAD African Bead Museum/American Black Artists