View the full Insta post & rest of the photos here: https://www.instagram.com/p/B7gbu_zh64n/?igshid=1iueby3um9y7p BIG EGUN ENERGY YALL 👏👏👏 I cannot recommend enough visiting the National Museum of African American History if you get a chance while in DC. I could feel the ancestors beaming and calling out in this space that beautifully honors the memories of so many heroes and brings forward the names and stories of many we may not know. I took some pictures of favorites including a “voodoo doll” gifted by Oprah Winfrey, a powerful quote from W. E. B. Du Bois, a section on the African roots of rice culture and the Gullah Geechee peoples (part of my personal heritage), and a list of online resources for doing your own genealogy research. The museum even has an “Explore Your Family History Center” where you can you can delve into digital resources related to family history, including the Freedmen’s Bureau digital archives (access online here: http://fbsearch.nmaahc.si.edu/), and receive expert guidance on how to conduct genealogical research and oral history interviews. Constructing and caring for our ancestor altars is very important, but it’s also the beginning and most foundational part of the ancestor work that needs to be done for our ancestors, our ourselves, our families, and our communities. Ancestral work can mean so much more, including creating and engaging with community spaces like this that honor our culture and history AND empower us to do that on a personal level too. If you have the opportunity to record family stories and history, make family trees, do research, conduct interviews with your elders and document it, that in itself is also sacred work. Our family lines are so powerful and so important to be kept in our memory and into the future. And we are surrounded by future ancestors in the living elders, parents, aunts and uncles and others around us - and even in ourselves. Our stories are our families stories, and when we can be the keepers and tellers of those stories, it uplifts and strengthens all of us. Maferefun Egun. Ashe. 🌿🌱🍃
