African Landing Day was held at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia on Saturday, August 24, 2024. The event honored the first Africans who were enslaved and brought to English North America in August 1619.
This year’s festival also marked the beginning of construction of the African Landing Memorial Plaza, which will include three large bronze sculptures; front panels; The Relief Wall; a back panel; The Arc; and a plaza. The $9 million project will acknowledge the contributions of Africans in America. Additionally, it will commemorate the landing of the first Africans to the Virginia Colony in English North America in August 1619 at Point Comfort, now known as Fort Monroe.
“Today, we take our first steps to physically create a memorial to the first Africans that arrived at Point Comfort. The land behind us will become a park that welcomes people with new infrastructure, road improvements, parking and lighting,” said Glenn Odor, executive director at Fort Monroe.
The African Landing Memorial is funded by federal and state entities, in addition to private and public organizations, grants, and donations. Construction will begin later this year. It is slated for completion in 2026.
“The African Landing Memorial will commemorate a historical event that impacted the history of this nation and forever challenges the concept of freedom and democracy. The Memorial recognizes the resilience and courage of the men and women from Angola who were forcibly brought to Point Comfort (present day Fort Monroe in Hampton, VA) in 1619. It will be placed on land that belonged for thousands of years to Indigenous Peoples and was used for hunting and fishing by the Kikotan tribe from the 16th Century until their village was destroyed by the English colonists in 1610,” per information provided by 1619landing.org.
Richard Press, a full-time artist, displays “Then and Now” at this year’s African Landing Day. Press artistically illustrates the progress that has been made through notable contributions.
Odor further stated that it is a generational responsibility to use property located at Fort Monroe to tell the full story of our country’s earliest beginnings. Park ranger Aaron G. Firth told The Baltimore Times earlier this year about Point Comfort’s historical role. “The 20. and odd” Africans were captured in present-day Angola. They were first forced to exit the ship at Point Comfort, not Jamestown.
“In late August of 1619, a ship flying a Dutch flag called the White Lion, and a couple days later the Treasurer, landed at Point Comfort looking to trade “20. and odd” enslaved Africans for supplies. This was the first documented trade of enslaved Africans in English-speaking North America,” he said.
During the commemorative event in Hampton, a Soil Blending Ceremony marked the site of the African Landing Memorial. Officials and guests brought small samples of soil from their homes or from another place to blend with the soil from Angola and Fort Monroe. The establishment of a sister city relationship between Angola’s Malanje province and Hampton, Virginia was also announced.
The Fort Monroe Authority; the Fort Monroe National Monument; and various organizations and members of the descendant community are collaborating to create the memorial.
“We are here today to make something beautiful out of the story that begins with unspeakable ugliness. We are here to remember people, ancestors who were robbed of their dignity as human beings, and yet as we gather today, we will sing and dance and celebrate our culture which began as their culture, because this is a story of survival, perseverance, and the determination to look in the face or cruelty and injustice, and to rise above it,” Mayor of Hampton, Donnie Tuck, said.
Members of the Tucker family attended African Landing Day. William Tucker was documented as the first child of African descent, born to Anthony and Isabella, two of the first documented Africans who arrived at Point Comfort to become servants on the plantation of Captain William Tucker and Mrs. Mary Tucker. The William Tucker 1624 Society, a nonprofit, is “dedicated to the education of the greater public about the first Africans to arrive in Virginia,” according to the nonprofit’s website.Learn more about the African Landing Memorial via www.1619landing.org.
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Publish date : 2024-08-29 18:00:00
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