Peace activists hold African libations ceremony, honoring enslaved ancestors

Under a red sun, seagulls’ calls and the scent of burning sage wafted past foamy waves breaking on the warm sand just after dawn Friday on Buckroe Beach.

Occasionally echoed by music from a hapi drum, a native flute or an agogô bell, Ayo Handy-Kendi spoke, prayed and sang as she led an African libations ceremony, calling upon the enslaved Africans who arrived in Hampton over four centuries ago.

“We are here to acknowledge the ancestral connection from Africa, here with our ancestors who came here first,” said Audri Scott Williams, an international human rights activist and the event organizer.

Williams, Handy-Kendi and eight other peace activists gathered Friday for the second of three rituals to be held this year as the group charts the course for Redemption Voyage 2026, a journey to “reverse the course” of the last slave ship to arrive in the United States.

Offerings of Florida water — a lemon and floral-scented cologne that became a ritual of some enslaved in the early 19th century — and pistachio and apple accompanied the ceremony. Corn kernels were shared, held by those present, and then cast, mingled, into a small pot.

“Every little seed that we are able to share is a way of reclaiming the traditions that were stolen from us,” Handy-Kendi said, “but, of course, were never truly gone.”

The ceremony reflected traditions from several African cultures, including the Igbo and Yoruba, and is now used for various occasions, she said. Now 71, she has been leading these rituals for nearly 50 years.

Concluding the ritual, several of the participants waded into the water.

“There’s a traditional way that you go to the ocean in many of the African cultures,” Williams said. “As we go into the water we give thanks for the presence of our ancestors and call on them for support.”

The first ritual was held in April at Africatown, Alabama, where the Clotilda’s journey ended in 1860. The third will take place in September on St. Helena Island, South Carolina.

Redemption Voyage 2026 will gather around 20 graduate students of African descent from historically Black colleges and universities to sail from Africatown to the West Coast of Africa. Williams said the project will begin recruiting those students later this year.

The project is intended to create “digital griots” — griots are oral historians — who will document their journey through various disciplines from marine science to art, Williams said.

Upon their return in 2026, 250 years after the United States was formed, their experiences and materials are intended to become a traveling exhibit, educational curricula and group-based dialogue.

Those students are like the corn kernels used in the ceremony, Handy-Kendi said: The seeds planted into the next generation.

But before they can be chosen, as the logistics and fundraising are worked out, Williams is embracing the importance of gathering the elders who will organize the journey and starting it with intention.

“I was taught the first thing you do when you’re starting out on a new venture is to make sure the ancestors are with you,” she said. “When we do our ceremony with the ancestors we are thanking them for their support, and for lifting us up as we go. It’s like protection, but it’s also honoring the past, to bring it forward into the future.”

Katrina Dix, 757-222-5155, katrina.dix@virginiamedia.com