Winners honor our ancestors in New York City during Kwanzaa. SJ Dodgson MJoTA 2013 v7n2 p1229
Above, during 2013 Kwanzaa celebrations at the African Burial Ground in Dec 2013, former NYC Mayor David Dinkins talks about his progression from being an oppressed member of the segregated Marine Corps to becoming the first son of Africa to be New York City mayor in 1990. Behind him is the gold-medal-winning Olympian runner, Tommie Smith.
Dr Smith spoke about courage and the need for discipline and knowledge of your own power. Dr Smith has been immortalized on murals and statues standing with head bowed, black-gloved fist aloft, with the other 2 Olympians he ran against who came second and third.
Soprano Shelby Banks sang the Negro National Anthem and the South African anthem, and in the afternoon, gave us a concert of Negro Spirituals in the rotunda, right picture.
Picture below, Dr
Deloris Blakely, a former Roman Catholic nun and Fulbright scholar, gives African names to Tommie Smith and his wife; and also to United Nations diplomat who is responsible for a statue at the UN memorializing the 400 years of struggle since the arrival on American shores of the sons and daughters of Africa who survived kidnapping and the Atlantic boat ride. Dr
Blakely is a human rights activist who works closely with the United
Nations.
Bottom picture, Mayor Dinkins shows a picture of Dr Blakely taken with Nelson Mandela.
He spoke about his journey from being in the segregated armed forces at the end of the second world war, when prisoners of war were treated better by US officials and laws than were Black soldiers.
He told us he called Madiba every year to wish him happy birthday on July 18, and always told him that when he is 100, Madiba would be 109. Alas, that was not to be.
