ion
F TEE TER
in L 45, the \\orld Trade Union
Co nfe r e nc met in Paris,
Fr nc . I was her that Black
laborer from the Caribbean,
America, and parts of Europe
got together nd called for a fifth
PAC 0 b held in the Republic
T R T an-
o her conference w lIed, this
im including both ind -
ndent nd n ionali t
movemen . Sixty two Libera­
ion ationalist and Liberation
ov ment were rep nted.
Patrice Lumumba, Abdul­
Rahman Babu, Nelon n­
dela, and Sekou Toure just to
name a few. Similar conferences
were held in Tunis and Cairo
w en 1961 and 1962.
In 1963, thirty two inde­
p nd nt t te m t in Addi
Ababa and form the Organi­
za ion of African Unity, whose
chart r and pur w a com­
promis of th r dical nd mod-
for ixth PAC
11 group of Afri-
m ric n nd Afric n
n who met in th
t nd Bermud in
1971 d '72. Th commit or­
ganized and th ixth PAC took
pl in June 1974 at th Uni­
v ity of D r- - alaam, and
w attend by 52 d legations
from African nd Caribb an
t t ,liberation movements,
two hundred and fifty African
Americans, and communiti of
Di porans from South Amer­
ica, Britain, and the Pacific.
I UE 0 THE agenda
were: independence through
armed truggle, the question of
imperial' m and neo-colonial­
ism, the underdevelopment of
third world countries, education
and culture, colonialism in the
Caribbean, and the role of Afri­
can women.
Unfortunately there was the
inability to make concrete reso­
lutions so that they could be car­
ried out, and there was no
organiz tional structure for the
Congress itself to erve as an
institutional base. So once again
the Pan'Afri n Congress would
lie dormant for another twenty
y a
(I-r) Dr. Tajude n Abdul-Raheem of Nigeria, General Secretary of the 7th Pan African Con­
gress, A. Akbar Muhammad, International Repre entative of the Nation of Islam, and Dr.
Addul-Rahman Muhammad 8abu from Taznzania, ba ed in London
tional contest sponsored by
Pep i-Cola Company. Each of
seven winners, and their guests,
were given seven days in
Senegal, all expenses paid. THE
CONTEST WAS a part of Pepsi­
Cola's Black History Month
campaign that sent 22,000 vide­
otapes of the prize winning tele­
vision documentary, "Eyes On
The Prize," to high schools and
to community organizations na-
tionwide. 4 .
While rich in African culture,
"Ceddo," the motion picture we
saw in Dakar, also portrayed the
r istance to the spread of Islam
in West Africa and the Black
African involvement in the slave
trade that took Africans to
North and South America.
"We must take the responsi­
bility, even though it hurts, that
some Africans sold other Afri­
cans as a part of the slave tr de,"
the U.S. had not prepared us for.
The beach at Saly, some 30
miles South of Dakar, was
where we met ,Djiby Ly, a 20-
year-old entrepreneur, musi­
cian and unofficial
greeter/translator and diplomat
to ove eas visitors to the beach
from nearby luxury hotels.
These visitors, it seemed, were
the young Senegalese's windows
to the world. The African Ameri­
can visitors among them seemed
to offer Djiby the opportunity to
excel as a one-man welcoming
committee.
He admired our tee shirts
with the Pepsi-Cola logo and the
words, "Black History Month,
1993, African American Pride &
Heritage," so we gave him one .
In turn, he gave me two hand­
made, beaded necklaces and a
two-foot, hardwood statue of an
African woman.
BY ADRIANNE
GEORGE-BOURNE
DAKAR, E EGAL - Africa's
for most filmm ker, au mane
Semb ne w resplendent in
kente cloth tunic with pants to
match when - smiling broadly
- he gr t d us on a recent Sat­
urday morning at the American
Cultural Center here.
We watched his prize-win­
ning cl a ic, "Ceddo" (pro­
nounced cheddo), a three-hour
color epic on life in West Africa
in the 17th Century that the
filmmaker said was meant as "a
tribute to African women," The
word"C do" m ns "the com­
mon people" in Wolof
How did our group - seven
. African Americ n university
studen, ch accomp nied y
one gu t - end up in a private
showing 'of . his film and then in
Africa's foremost filmmaker, Ousman Sembene, fourth from left, greet the even African
American university stud nts who recently won the grand prize of trip to Sen gal in a
Pepsi-Cola-sponsored national essay contest.
__ a � •
women in her culture have over
their destinies.
costly and sometimes too diffi­
cult."
We visited Ismael's older
brother at the shop where he
supervises the manufacture of
machines that grind peanuts
into peanut butter. Ismael's
brother was especially happy to
practice his English and he hur­
riedly sent Ismael out to buy bot­
tled water and another to
borrow a chair for me to sit in.
Other men, forming the audi-
o h' village, we
m his andmo h r, r tingon
a tr w mat 10 front of her hou
, during the h at of h d y Djiby
xplained in tl .. Woloflanguage
that' my family had n k n
from Africa many years before.
His grandmo her asked where,
AFRICAN MARKET - Senegale adult and.cblldren join he Pepsi-Col n tion Ie. ay
contes.t winners in a lei urely w Ik through an African market in Dakar, Seneg I. Mark Small ,
Manager, Ethnic Marketing, Pepsi-Cola Company, is in tee hirt at left nd Sandra Hanna of
• Tufts Univer ity i econd from right. Th group of ev n African-American college tudent
won the trip to Senegal for e ay th y wrote on the topic ·Wh tithe Mo t Important Event
in African American Hi tory in the La t 20 Ve r 1· Each tud nt wallowed to bring one
gue t.
in Africa, had my family lived.
When I told her I did not know,
she replied, "You are from here
- welcome home."
Pepsi officials had arranged
for our visiting group to meet
with Senegalese college stu­
dents who were specializing in
studying the English language.
Like Sembene, the students
made our visiting group think.
Still, however, we took the time
WHERE THE TRADI­
TIONAL rules are followed, she
said, a woman's virginity equals
power. A beaut ifu l, smart
woman who remains a virgin
"controls her bride price and can
choose which.man she'll marry,"
Marame said. She said that al­
though a monogamous marriage
is ideal initially, she would ap­
prove of her husband's taking a
econd wife eventually. "It i
much safer," she id, "keeping
everything at home,"
Men can hav up to four wiv
under Senegal Muslim law.
Ismael M'Bow, a classically-tall,
dark and handsome university
stud nt who wants to me an
English prof or, insists that
he wants only one wife. "1 have
only one heart and one love," he
explained, "Ensuring that all of
your children ar happy is a
rd job and can ca many
problems."
"Polygamy," Ismael said to an
agreeing male chorus, "is too
ence in a "theatre in the round,"
gathered to observe and to hear
our spirited conv ration in
English, French and Wolof.
Those able to translate were
kept very busy.
THE E ALE E TU-
n came to the irport-
'with gifts for all of us - and w
had a rful s ion of good­
by . We left with love and ad­
miration for people w had not
known up until a w k before.
Now, boarding th Air Afri­
que jetliner for th return to
w York, 1 promised to concen­
tr t mor eriously on my
French lessons and to come beck
to S negal as oon as I could.
-to exch�nge popular dance
from both ides of the Atlantic -­
we taught them the "electric
lide" and they taught us "the
dog." Senegale college tu­
dents shared views of marriage
and family lif that embraced
both modern and traditional val­
u .
Mar me C' is a utiful,
25-year-old, Sene 1 woman
with a dazzling smile. I met her
t Ch ikh Antadiop University
(form rly Unive ity of D kar),
he wor a tan linen fit v t
nd ina hing w lking horts
that we accesorized with dou-
ble strand pearls and a bracel t.
Surprising all of us, he rev led
some peets of the pow r that