(7) SAADI QUEST: MWM: Back to Africa – Roots Lead to Truth

The drumming and dancing and being around people from the Caribbean and Africa, especially the old ones, the elders made a big impact on Saadi. 


Saadi went to the Million Woman March not knowing what to expect.  The plans weren’t as laid out as in the Million Man March.  People were asked to wear white and bring drums and rhythm instruments.  Saadi brought some percussion instruments, and a shekare, the gourd covered on the outside with strings of beads.

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She and her best friend Luna came up on some drummers.  The drumming called to Saadi’s spirit, she went over and began playing her shekare.  Gradually more and more sistas started to come.  They formed a dance circle, grandmothers, and granddaughters, middle aged and corporate, youth women and toddlers.  It kept growing and growing about ten people deep, with enough room in the center for four or five people to dance.  The energy was sparking and swirling around Saadi’s ears.  Everyone clapped and moved their feet.  As they did calls the energy rose higher and higher.

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Saadi looked up into the sky.  She sang and chanted out sounds and calls coming from her soul. What Saadi saw was not the overcast sky of Philly.  Everything looked different, very bright and very clear, she felt transported to some other place.  They were all back in the homeland of their ancestors.  Saadi felt a surge of energy enter her spirit and pierce the top of her head.  She looked down and saw the circle from above.  She peered at their faces.  Everyone was moving and dancing, vibing to the ancient rhythms, knowing without knowing, as high energy coursing through wave after wave.  The circle had grown to more than 300 sistas of all ages.  A voice rose high sending ou

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t the ever-familiar call of the rolling tongue.  The call that started at a high pitch and raised even higher and higher, - yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yah, yahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…calling home.

Later after the circle was over Saadi and Luna walked around the grounds.  That was when she saw the elders.  One elderly brutha, so old his skin was a mass of wrinkles yet his eyes were bright and clear, looked at her like he was looking for something or as if he recognized her.  He said something but Saadi could not understand through his thick accent.  She looked around at the other old ones sitting with him. They would lock eyes with Saadi and look deep inside. The feeling was eerie yet somewhat familiar.

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A very tall elder woman with long narrow features walked over to Saadi.  The woman was dressed completely in cream, a head wrap, peasant blouse and a long wide skirt that brought out the rich red hues in her beautiful coffee colored skin.  She twirled small stones in one of her hands.  They made a rhythmic clicking noise.  She looked at Saadi for what seemed an eternity without saying a word.  Then she spoke with a heavy patois accent, “Mother Africa”  she said looking deep into Saadi’s eyes.  She looked at Luna and said, “Uhm, greetings daughta.”  Saadi felt a knowing, she felt an ancient self.  In a moment of clarity she saw she was being other than her true self and possibly approaching living a lie. 

I have been living as others see me…parents, brothers and sisters, teachers, lovers, even communities.  It has become second nature.  Now, I must search for my first nature.  My roots lead to truth.

Later Winnie Mandela spoke to the rally.  She told them that women around the world were watching them.  They saw the will of the Black woman in America, her will to survive, her tenacity and refusal to give up even after so many generations of oppression.  They knew that the Black women in America held a vital key to the salvation of Black people and Black people held the key to the salvation of the world. The world would never truly be free until Black people were free. Black women held the key to the freedom of all.

“Sistas! Do not give up!  Continue the struggle.  You are the helm of this freedom ship.  We are with you!

Saadi took the message completely to heart.  It was time to take a righteous stand with conscious bruthas and sistas at her side.  But it wasn’t quite clear just what conscious meant, Black conscious, spiritual conscious, consciousness that did not place women below men?  Where in the world was she going to find those people?

Now here she was talking to Malik. Was he the type of brutha she longed for?  Well here she was in the loc brutha’s home, feeling things she had not felt for a very long time. 

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