Heartfelt joy, many smiles, and a feeling of deep resilience filled StFX’s MacKay Room, Bloomfield Centre, Feb. 1, 2024, as the Town of Antigonish’s African Heritage Month launch took place celebrating that very theme.
‘Our Smiles, Our Joy, Our Resilience as African Nova Scotians’ is this year’s provincial theme for African Heritage Month.
“This is a celebration. This year’s theme tells it all,” said Lorraine Reddick, Strait Regional Centre for Education (SRCE) Student Support Worker and event co-emcee with StFX Black Student Advisor Akua Amankwah-Poku.
“I hope you’re encouraged today, educated, and inspired,” Ms. Amankwah-Poku said as community members, local school students, teachers and administrators, and StFX students, staff and faculty gathered for the ceremony.
African Heritage Month is a time of reflection, celebration, and importantly, education, she said. It is a time to honour the culture and history and to share the story and many contributions of African Nova Scotians past and present.
The theme speaks to celebrations and joy, but also to perseverance and overcoming obstacles.
Ms. Amankwah-Poku said these next four weeks are to highlight and inspire our community, but African heritage is something to be celebrated for more than just one month.
“What an honour it is to celebrate African heritage, not just this month, but always.
“A Black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness,” she said quoting Marcus Garvey.
StFX Vice-President Students Elizabeth Yeo gave an important announcement in her remarks as she noted StFX will be establishing a Centre for Black Student Success.
The proposed centre will be an important step forward on campus, she said, offer programming and education and acting as a hub for community-based education, for healing, for culturally relevant resources and for celebrating community.
Deacon Catherine Hartling, Chair, Antigonish/Guysborough Zone 7 African Cultural Heritage Association, brought greetings. She advised everyone to remember to step forward with smiles and joy and to carry that resilience with them.
“It is great to celebrate African Heritage Month, but we must also continue to realize African heritage must be every month of the year,” she said.
Antigonish County Warden Owen McCarron and Antigonish Town Councillor Andrew Murray read the proclamation declaring February as African Heritage Month during their remarks and joined with stage party members to unveil the 2024 African Heritage Month poster.
The Hon. Twila Grosse, Minister of African Nova Scotia Affairs, sent video greetings, and the Hon. Michelle Thompson, Health Minister and MLA for Antigonish, sent written remarks.
SRCE Regional Executive Director Paul Landry spoke on the importance of education and learning about our shared history in helping to create equality.
As part of the ceremony, the Pan-African flag was raised in Alumni Flag Plaza as Kenyatta Boakye sang ‘Lift Every Voice.’
University Chaplain Fr. Donald MacGillivray offered the opening prayer, and Fr. Stan MacDonald blessed the food, which followed the ceremony.
The event concluded with a high energy drumming performance from Morgan Gero and students from St. Andrew Junior School and Dr. John Hugh Gilis Regional High School.
