For the past 16 years, members of St. Paul’s work for three months to create a production that rivals a Broadway show in set design, sound, music, dance and costumes. With hundreds of cast members, nearly all of whom are church members, they're not just putting on a song and dance. They're talking to their community, the black community (and the few whites who know someone) about the need for black people to remember and mourn slavery as a path to collective healing. MAAFA is "derived from the Swahili term for disaster, terrible occurrence or great tragedy....It refers to the 500 years of suffering of Black Africans and the African Diaspora, through slavery, imperialism, colonialism, invasion, oppression, dehumanization and exploitation." The best part about the show is that it doesn't stop at the downfall of slavery. The cast takes up issues happening today, from police brutality to liquor and check cashing stores in their neighborhoods to the present need to defend black communities. That modern-day part especially made me and probably all of the white audience members squirm. It is not a feel-good show designed for our comfort and full-heartedness. It's what Martin Luther King Day should be like in our public life- strong, angry, political black people who are willing to confront history head on, not as a way to pacify, but as a way to gain power. |
