Pittman orchestrates ceremony to honor the 1619 African Landing and serves as a Panelist with esteemed guest Nikole Hannah Jones at Fort Monroe National Monument

27 years ago, I began my life’s work at the African Burial Ground National Monument giving voice to the Africans enslaved in colonial New York who were buried under Wall Street from the 1700’s. 11 years of The Sankofa ProjectsRemembrance at Buckroe Beach honoring the millions of Africans who were murdered on the Middle Passage and jumped or were thrown into the Atlantic Ocean during the Transatlantic “Slave” Trade. Each moment has led up to this one... Grateful... Sacred grounds... Truth telling... Honoring Ancestors of the Middle Passage, the 20 and of Africans of 1619, the Veterans, all the named snd unnamed souls who have lost their lives due to racialized terror in this country and abroad with Nikole Hannah-Jones at the Fort Monroe National Monument Thank you Eola Dee and Phyllis Terrell for another wonderful collaboration between the Fort Monroe Authority, the National Park Service, Hampton University, the Smithsonian and The Sankofa Projects. Asante Sana to Mama Anita Harrell, Orimolade Ogunjimi, William Delidji Oludahunsi Bowser, Dmitri Clawson, Bonney Barnes, Kam Kelly, Stephanie Brown-Valderrama, Paco, Anpu Sil... for your beautiful energy and sharing your talents.

Pittman delivers the Indigenous Peoples' Day 2021 Lecture at Brandeis University ~ "I, Too, Am America: Stolen Land and the Forced Migration of the African and the Native"~October 2021

Pittman as Keynote for 44th Annual Organization for the Study of Communication, Language and Gender-October 6-10, 2021

Thrilled to serve as the Keynote for the 44th OSCLG 2021 Conference. My lecture was "Wearing their Flesh like War: Women Worthy of Witness from the African Burial Ground to Anarcha and from Recy to Breonna Taylor" borrowing from the words of Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison for the title. After the keynote, I orchestrated the first ever OSCLG Remembrance ceremony to honor the fierce feminists and warrior women who have passed on to the Ancestral Realm.

So honored to be the recipient of the 2021 OSCLG Special Award for Intersectional Feminism and Social Justice and stand in community with this group of esteemed Feminists.

Pittman Orchestrates Welcome Ceremony for Association for African American Museums 2021 Virtual Conference, “SUN SOUL SOIL: DIASPORIC BLACKNESS AND JUSTICE IN GLOBAL MUSEUMS”

I orchestrated the Opening Ceremony and the Calling of Names for the Ancestors for AAAM 2021 Virtual Conference. I included th specific aspects of the conference theme which were incorpoarted into the ceremony and demonstarted through the drumming the ways in which Africans across the diaspora have retained their cultural connections to Africa despite the horror of slavery. I poured libations at Buckroe Beach, Fort Monroe National Monument and Emanicipation Oak at Hampton University touching the soil in these historic and sacred sites in African American history. We poured for those who perished in the Middle Passage, those who perished due to racial violence and terror, all whom we lost due to natural causes and to those we lost due to the global pandemic. We honored the Native blood spilled on these lands to honor their Ancestral connection to Mother Earth. I also participated in a panel discussion after the Opening Ceremony to speak to the importance of these moments in history where we reflect and acknowledge why we must remember the past. SANKOFA!!!!

Pittman Orchestrates Governor Northam's "Journey to Juneteenth" Ceremony for the Ancestors at Fort Monroe National Monument June 2021

My sacred work is rooted in REMEMBRANCE; Remembrance of the Ancestors, Remembrance of critical time periods and in Remembrance of places which hold memory of what happened there. For the past nearly 30 years, since my years working at the NY African Burial Ground Project, I have been committed to giving voice to those Africans who were silenced due to slavery and every other racial injustice that was inflicted upon them throughout history; Juneteenth is one of thise critical times which needs to be acknowledged and these African Ancestors need to be remembered. I was invited to orchestrate the "Calling of the Names" for Governor Northam's Juneteenth program on June 18, 2021 at the Fort Monroe Nationsl Monument. Master Drummer Anpu Sil John Earl Robinson opened with a Drum call to begin the ceremony in honor of the Africans of Galveston, Texas. I poured a libation in honor the FIRST NATIONS, INDIGENOUS and the Africans of the Diaspora throughout history like Ota Benga and Mary Turner who was lynched in 1918 as well as the contemporary losses we have endured like Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Amadou Diallo. Photo credit: Terez Dean

SANKOFA'S 10TH ANNUAL VIRTUAL REMEMBRANCE - JUNE 12, 2021 BUCKROE BEACH, HAMPTON VA

Pittman delivers lecture, "Moving beyond the Monolithic: An Exploration of Black Families Across the African Diaspora~February 2021

Pittman on Panel to discuss "Black Burial Grounds and Ancestral Commemorations" ~ February 2021 ~ Long Beach City College

Pittman on panel with Ama Boakyewa, PhD and Deborah A Wright to discuss the Impact of the New York African Burial Ground Project~ February 2021

Chadra Pittman at ABG 1997

2003 at Reinterment of Skeletal remains

Pittman presents lecture for Tidewater African Cultural Alliance and orchestrates a Remembrance ceremony ~ February 2021