Dr Glenville Ash­by

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­sulate in New York was trans­formed in­to a vir­tu­al palais as mem­bers of the Orisa and Shouter faith, backed by drum­mers, ig­nit­ed the packed au­di­ence. The oc­ca­sion was Black His­to­ry Month cel­e­bra­tion, the first of its kind at the down­town Man­hat­tan con­sular of­fices. In her open­ing re­marks, con­sul Gen­er­al Rudrawa­tee Nan Ram­goolam stressed the im­por­tance of cul­ture in the lives of peo­ple the world over. She lament­ed the cul­tur­al dis­con­nect by many of the na­tion's youths, and beck­oned them to re-ex­am­ine their rich cul­tur­al her­itage and the peo­ple who have ex­celled in every field de­spite strug­gles and ob­sta­cles. "Too many of our youths are with­out pos­i­tive men­tors and even he­roes and we feel that cel­e­brat­ing the great per­sons in our past and present will of­fer a point of ref­er­ence," she not­ed. She iden­ti­fied the un­par­al­leled con­tri­bu­tion of Dr Er­ic Williams, ANR Robin­son, CLR James, Rudolph Charles, Boscoe Hold­er, Len Boogsie Sharpe, Giselle La Ronde, Janelle Com­mis­siong, Hasley Craw­ford and a host of oth­ers promi­nent Afro-Trinida­di­ans. She al­so made men­tion of the dis­tinct­ly Afro-cen­tric faiths that make up the twin is­land's re­li­gious mo­sa­ic, and the con­tri­bu­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty to the unique is­land cui­sine.

Her ad­dress was fol­lowed by a his­tor­i­cal pre­sen­ta­tion by Mobu­tu Sek­ou, and a per­for­mance by Ifa priest, Ma­ha­ba Olufe­mi, whose riv­et­ting po­et­ry read­ing, against the back­drop of light drum­ming, set the tone for an ex­plo­sive cul­tur­al fan­fare. The event al­so fea­tured dancer Lichelle Joseph, and a com­pelling drum­ming ex­hi­bi­tion by Earl Noel and friends. The evening event was well at­tend­ed and at­tract­ed lead­ers of the In­do-Trinida­di­an com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing Imam Ahmed Ali, Gopaul Lall of the East In­di­an Mu­si­cal Acad­e­my, and Deep­ak Ra­man of the Arya Spir­i­tu­al Cen­tre. Black His­to­ry Month which be­gan in 1976, cel­e­brates the ac­com­plish­ments of the African Di­as­po­ra and is pop­u­lar in the Unit­ed States, the Unit­ed King­dom, and Cana­da. Con­sul Gen­er­al Nan Rudrawa­tee pledged its year­ly ob­ser­vance at the Con­sulate. "We on­ly test­ed the wa­ters," she said, re­fer­ring to the in­au­gur­al event, "but by the look of things, we may have to get a big­ger venue next year."

Dr Glenville Ash­by

New York cor­re­spon­dent