AMERICA'S OLDEST-KNOWN AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND AND SOUTH AFRICA'S "FREEDOM PARK" ARE LINKED BY COMMON STRUGGLES, KINDRED SPIRITS, SAYS BARBARA MASEKELA, SOUTH AFRICA'S U.S. AMBASSADOR

(Photo on Left)
(L-R) Jazz great Hugh Masekela talks with Howard Dodson, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, during his performance with the acclaimed Boys &Girls Choirs of Harlem at the African Burial Ground Memorial Site in New York City.

(Photo on Right)
Dr. Mongane Wally Serote, CEO of South Africa's Freedom Park Trust; Hon. Barbara Masekela, South Africa's Ambassador to the U.S., and Shelia Maepa, a traditional healer from South Africa, prepare for a soil transference ceremony at the African Burial Ground in New York City.

(AANEWSWIRE)(NEW YORK CITY - December 9, 2004) This fall, one week after H.E. Olusegun Obasanjo, president of Nigeria and the chairperson of the African Union, made the first official visit by an African head of state to the African Burial Ground in New York City, the Hon. Barbara Masekela, South Africa's Ambassador to the U.S., stood at the podium on the African Burial Ground surrounded by the Boys and Girls Choirs of Harlem.

"We have gathered here at a very important event. But it is not an event, it is a process," she told the audience assembled on the October afternoon for the festive tribute, "Africans in the Americas: Celebrating the Ancestral Heritage," sponsored by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. "We remember our ancestors - not on a single day. We remember them every day and we try to approximate what they have given us to show the best of what Africans are," she said.

Ambassador Masekela had journeyed to the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan for a special ceremony that would link the ancestral African resting place in New York City to the African ancestors in South Africa's Freedom Park. "A visionary undertaking," Freedom Park narrates the story of South Africa's ancient, pre-colonial, colonial Apartheid and post-Apartheid history. In 2004, South Africa marked the 10th anniversary of the country's first democratic elections. Freedom Park, a place of pilgrimage, renewal and inspiration for South Africans and all peace and justice-loving peoples of the world, is about reconciliation and nation building. What connects Freedom Park in South Africa, thousands of miles away, to the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan is that both are symbols of the struggle of humanity for freedom and dignity-the African Burial Ground ancestors from slavery and the South African freedom fighters from Apartheid.

In 2003, Ambassador Masekela, the sister of jazz great Hugh Masekela, made history as the first Black woman to be South African Ambassador to the U.S. During Apartheid, she had spent 27 years in exile. After Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Ambassador Masekela returned to South Africa and served as his chief of staff from1990 to 1994. Between 1995 and 1999, she served as ambassador to France and UNESCO (1995-99). She is the founder of the African National Congress Office of Arts and Culture and served as its secretary for seven years. During her career, she has been the Executive Director for Public and corporate affairs for De Beers Consolidated Mines; has held executive and non-executive directorships, including director of the Standard Bank of South Africa, the South African Broadcasting Corporation and the International Marketing Council; and been an assistant professor of English literature at the Staten Island Community College in New York and at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

The historic African Burial Ground, located in lower Manhattan, is the site where nearly 20,000 colonial 17th and 18th-century African men, women and children are buried. "The African Burial Ground is a bridge for Africans here with Africans on the Mother Continent," said Howard Dodson, the chief of the Schomburg. "And the presence of African leaders on the site acknowledges the bond between Africans in the Diaspora and Africans at home."

In preparing for the soil transference ceremony, linking the African Burial Ground in New York to Freedom Park in South Africa, Ambassador Masekela explained "we should continue to work to build even stronger relationships with African Americans and the African Diaspora, and to support the work of Schomburg and to support the work of Freedom Park."

The soil from the African Burial Ground, America's oldest recognized Colonial-era burial ground, was presented by Mr. Dodson to Ambassador Masekela in a ritual ceremony officiated by South African traditional faith healers, Sheila Maepa and Sikhula Shange, with U.S. spiritual leaders. It was carried by Mrs. Maepa to Freedom Park's Garden of Remembrance, where it would be placed together with other soil and special boulders.

"You are all welcome there," said Dr. Mongane Wally Serote, CEO of South Africa's Freedom Park. "We will be expecting you."

"These official state visits by our African brothers and sisters will go a long way towards affirming the site's importance and fostering improved relationships between people of the African continent and the people of African descent in the Americas," said Dodson. "The African Burial Ground links Africa and its diaspora. It is deserving of recognition as a World Heritage Site."

For more information on Freedom Park, please visit www.freedompark.org.za and for more information on the African Burial Ground, please visit www.africanburialground.com .
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