A Tree Without Roots

Reconnecting with one's African roots can be a deeply meaningful and fulfilling experience. It’s an opportunity to understand your cultural heritage, build a sense of identity, find a sense of pride, unite a divided people, and heal intergenerational trauma. However, it takes bravery to begin this journey of cultural discovery, so the ones who do take that step must be honored. My father and many HistoryMakers before him are bravehearts who searched their souls and found their connection to Cameroon.

Political science professor and genealogist Willard Johnson is a brilliant man who chose to study the motherland. But he didn’t simply sift through research articles or look at photos online to gather his information, instead, he got first hand experience and went to Cameroon himself. He describes his research and some of what he learned,

“I was interested in African unity. Cameroon was the first really important example of pulling together disparate colonial legacies 'cause it had been a German colony, and then taken over by the French and the British and divided, and then you had a reunification movement to pull it back together. That partially succeeded. It split the British Cameroons with Northern British and Southern British Cameroon. Southern British Cameroon voted to come back into with the rest of Cameroon, so my dissertation was the reunification movement in Cameroon and then my plan and subsequent, you know, project was to turn that dissertation into a book, which was my book on Cameroon, 'The Cameroon Federation[: Political Integration in a Fragmentary Society,' Willard R. Johnson], going from the reunification movement all the way through to the actual experience of integrating those systems, the legal system, commercial system, education system, and so forth. All had been very heavily impacted by the colonial powers. So now you've got to create one out of those. And I thought that that would be a kind of pilot for the rest of the continent with regard to African unity.”

Beyond his investigations, Johnson traveled the country and took in its diverse and beautiful scenery:

“It was wonderful. It was a great time to be there, very exciting, optimistic time. I got a chance to travel throughout the whole of the country…I visited every single purfey [ph.] and suprefey [ph.] in the country and I interviewed the leadership top to bottom. You can't do that kind of work anymore, you know, you take on a whole country and you talk to its entire leadership, you know, and you write it up as one book. Cameroon is beautiful. It's a very diverse country, geographically and culturally. It's got dessert in the north, it's got dense rain forest in the south. It's got highland plateau. It's got grass fields in the west. It's got Pygmies in the south. It's got Muslim domination, you know, Islamic zone in the north. We leaved in Yaounde [Cameroon] which is on the plateau, beautiful. Varies between seventy and eighty degrees, you know, year round. That was gorgeous. It was a great town.”

My father, D’uAndre Drain, shares this experience. In his trip to Cameroon, he went to beaches, forests, cities - all of which are home to his (and my) ancestral people. There, just like Willard Johnson, he was able to meet the country’s leadership and royalty. He met and was blessed by kings and princes, like Prince Kum’a Ndumbe III.

Charles Cherry III is a publisher, radio station manager, lawyer, and a man with a connection to his past. He took an African Ancestry DNA test to determine his origins, and he found out he is tied to the Bamileke ethnic group of Cameroon. Although he had yet to travel to Cameroon at the time of this interview, he did his research online.

“...From what we understand, the Bamileke are very entrepreneurial folks. I would, I would, I can see that on both sides of my family, but particularly on, particularly on hers, very artistic…They're, I think, may be either the majority or the second largest of the ethnic groups in, in the Cameroons from, from the sort of brief research that we done. And, and since my grandfather was a, was a builder, he was a, a contractor, master carpenter, I can see where you know that that may be something known and you know that was brought sort of entrepreneurial spirit and sort of you know having owning your own maybe it may be something that came over in the family.”

Upon returning home from his trip from Africa, my dad says the same thing. Bamileke people are full of ambition, and it is seen in my bloodline as well. The shared mindset and energy of the Bamileke people is strong enough to reach across continents.

Monica Pearson, a television anchor, traced back her material ancestry as well. After extreme efforts of finding the history to connect her to her lost family members, Monica Pearson and her mother sought out DNA testing.

“...Through africanancestry.com, we did DNA, and I learned through them that on my maternal side, my mother's ancestors and my maternal ancestors are from the Bamileke people in the Cameroons. So, Mother felt very comfortable with that because it gave her a sense of a history. You know, she said again, "I may not know, I remember--." She remembers pictures of family members that disappeared over the years that she doesn't have. So, she kept saying, "It's good to know at least, you know, on my side of the family, I can be traced back to the Cameroons and the Bamileke people." And that made her feel good.

There is so much pride that comes with knowing who you are and allowing yourself to be touched by the spirits of those before you. Mary T. Christian, an insightful educator and state delegate, feels the same way:

“Oh, I think it's just so important because we need to know where we have been in order to know where we are going and it's also important because I always try to help children even the negatives that came from slavery. I try to point out the positives. Let's say look at these people, not only are they not inferior, they're superior. Look what they had to do under the bonds of slavery, no education, couldn't even speak among themselves because of the multiplicity of languages in Africa, they couldn't even converse among themselves. They formed this language which we now call Negro dialect and I say they built our schools, they built our churches and they need to know the people that emerged as which are not in the history books because if students can see other people like themselves it certainly improves their aspirations and they can become because they see those of us who have become. So I just think it is so important to know yourself… I'm proud of who I am, I'm proud of my ancestors. I mean proud of not the slavery--the system of slavery--but what those people did in spite of slavery.”

Represents black peoples connection to Africa

Our ancestors have given us so much, so we should feel obligated to return the favor by spreading awareness and keeping their stories alive. Mariam DeCosta-Willis is an educator as well, and she makes it her mission to ensure that everyone feels the need to advocate for our honorable ancestors:

“…My main goal in life through everything, through raising my children, through my teaching, through my scholarship, is to preserve and honor the memory and the contributions of the ancestors and the wonderful creative gifts that they have bestowed on each succeeding generation. Beginning not only with my own ancestors, but you know, those who came from Africa under all kinds of just difficult circumstances; that they lived, and they created, and they passed on values, and they passed on stories, and they had these tremendous creative gifts; that's what my life has been involved in; preserving those contribution and passing those on to the next generation. And, whether it's in my teaching, or whether it's in my scholarship, or whether it's in the lives of my children and grandchildren, you know; that's how I want to be membered, be remembered, as a culture bearer.”

AfricanAncestory group on International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

My father has formed a strong interconnection with his Bamileke ancestors. He has walked along the African coast of Cameroon (Kribi) to honor those that were lost and those who survived during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Those ancestral survivors are the reason for our existence in America. They are the reason my father identifies as a Cameroonian Sierra Leonean American. It is imperative that we know that we are more than simply African Americans. We must know the names, the origins, and the stories of ‘the first of us’. They must be remembered.

My father feeling the spirit of his ancestors

Having history to ground us is of utmost importance in life. We cannot continue to live if we haven't opened ourselves to the lives of those before us. We are what we come from, for there is no such thing as a living tree without roots.

AMBASSADOR UPDATE:

A date and location has been finalized for the upcoming HistoryMakers Digital Archive 2023 Black History Month Contest, and award plaques are currently in the making. I look forward to celebrating the hard work of these Prairie View A&M students. In addition, the main mission has been to reestablish the digital archives on PVAMUs campus. The school’s temporary subscription has expired, so I have been meeting with library staff to advocate the renewal. I hope to hear back soon.

SEARCH TERMS:

Africa visit

Cameroon

Cameroon dance

Cameroon music

Cameroon Bamileke

Bamileke ancestor

Ancestors Africa important

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