Maya Angelou Stirs..., continued

"Teach," exclaimed the white-haired woman in the audience, again and again.

Angelou was among 10 speakers at the opening plenary of "Slave Routes: The Long Memory," a five-day conference at New York University, sponsored by the Africana Studies Program and its benefactors.

More than 500 people attended the opening session Oct. 5, a mostly African-American crowd of students, teachers, photographers, performers, historians and scholars.

The distinguished panelists gathered on stage, including Angelou, former UNESCO director-general Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow, author and educator Rex Nettleford, historian Colin Palmer, and TransAfrica director Randall Robinson. Each of the speakers settled into their seats as a white woman appeared behind them in maid's attire, serving glasses of water.

The crowd was enthusiastic. Anxious audience members frantically shuffled through their programs reading the biographical sketches of the speakers and perusing the schedule for the week's events. A mini-drama erupted outside the auditorium, where desperate students scrambled to find a place to sit and organizers blocked others from entering because there were no more seats.

"Folks here are giants in the field," says Derek Musgrove, a graduate student in history, referring to the all-star panel of speakers.

Palmer, who teaches history at the City University of New York, spoke of the Middle Passage, the journey on the slave ships from Africa to America, saying the slave trade was unlike any other form of commerce and must be "etched in our consciousness."

From the audience, Joan Cowan, an administrative employee at NYU, agreed. "Young black Americans have forgotten their slave tradition," she said. ". . .The young black youth want to define their own sense of being, their own culture, but in order to do that, you have to look at your past."

Actress Vinie Burrows, a panelist earlier in the day, said it was difficult but essential for her to tap into the torment of slavery. She felt discussing the trade and its impact on society would shed light on an aspect of United States and world history that has been neglected or lied about for too long.

"We are the descendants of these people," she said, hastily downing dinner from an aluminum container before the plenary began. "...And what I take with me is the profundity and the depth of the pain and human anguish."

Saidiya Hartman, who teaches English at the University of California at Berkley, agreed. "The terror and scope of it needs to be discussed," she said as she filed into the main auditorium. In a panel on Wednesday, Hartman took part in a discussion of slave resistance.

A few college students lingered on the stairway leading into another auditorium where organizers had arranged to simulcast the proceedings for the overflow crowd. "How many times do you get people at the same time in the same place to look on history?" said Jamie Wilson, a graduate History student at NYU explaining why he made time to attend. "It's gonna be up to me to know what they know."

Jerry Philogene, a graduate student in American Studies, had similar reasons for attending. "It's a history that a lot of folk don't know," she said. ". . . It's important to start this dialogue again and bring this issue to the forefront."

Randall Robinson, founder and President of TransAfrica, a foreign policy institute, turned preacher for the evening as his speech morphed into a sermon, inviting shouts of affirmation to fly from the audience. Cries of "Me, too!" "Here, here!" and the white-haired woman's "Teach!" punctuated his remarks.

"I never expected this many people," said Brenda Wilkinson as she left the auditorium. The author of a new book for children about African American women writers was hopeful the conference would get good publicity. ". . .And this is just the beginning," she said.