By Steve Huffman
shuffman@salisburypost.com
Obakunla Akinlana shared a simple story Tuesday night, the tale of an African village.
The story was told to about 50 people participating in a Kwanzaa celebration at the J.F. Hurley Family YMCA.
Akinlana, a drummer, storyteller and all-around entertainer, was one of the facilitators of Tuesday’s celebration.
He told the story of an African village where the children were all bad. Not the garden variety bad, mind you, but truly rotten.
One day, their father had had all he could stand and decided he was going to do something about it.
“Go and get me a switch and bring it back to me quickly,” the father instructed.
The children did as they were told, but they each broke their switches in two before they could be applied to their behinds.
The father then repeated his command, reminding his charges that their second switch “better not be no small one.”
And so each child went and returned with another switch, then stood awaiting his or her punishment.
But the father surprised his children. Instead of whipping them with the switches, he collected all the branches, then bound them with a single string. What the father wound up with was a broom.
He then handed the broom to his strongest child and told him to break it.
The boy tried and tried, but couldn’t snap the switches when they were bound together.
The father passed the broom to each child, always repeating the command, “Break it!”
None of the children could do so.
“See?” the father said, “if you’re together as a family, as a community, as a town, no one will ever break you.”
Akinlana said the story can easily be translated to modern society. If we band together, he said, no one can break us.
“We should look for more similarities than differences among us,” Akinlana said.
Eleanor Qadirah, community project coordinator for the local Kwanzaa celebration, said Tuesday marked the 14th year the event has been staged in Salisbury.
She said that in years past, the celebration has been held throughout the week, a different event for each day of Kwanzaa.
But Qadirah said that more recently, the Salisbury celebration has been limited to a single night. And that, she said, suits well the community.
“Every time we’ve held it here at the Y, we’ve had a wonderful turnout,” Qadirah said. “Everybody thought we’d outgrow the Y, but it’s just right.”
She said vendors came from as far away as Charlotte to sell clothing that resembles that which is native to Africa. Others sold T-shirts commemorating Barack Obama’s soon-to-be stint as the 44th president of the United States.
And still others, Qadirah said, cooked meals that were native to Nigeria and west Africa that they planned to share with other celebration participants.
Tuesday’s event was hosted by the Black Achievers of the J.F. Hurley Family YMCA.
Tuesday marked the fifth principle (Nia) and day of Kwanzaa. Many participants wore ethnic attire, with roots that trace to Africa.
Kwanzaa is an African-American celebration with emphasis on traditional African values of family, community, responsibility and self-improvement. Participants stressed the celebration is neither political or religious, and said that contrary to popular misconceptions, is not a substitute for Christmas.
Kwanzaa is based on seven guiding principles, one for each day of the celebration.
Toward the end of the program, Akinlana, the storyteller who led much of Tuesday’s celebration, called about a dozen young people from the audience and assembled a band. He then pulled an older man from the crowd and made him the chief.
The band members rang bells, pounded drums and shook devices that greatly resembled tambourines.
The music they produced was surprisingly good, sounding as if they had been rehearsing for weeks.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Akinlana said, “I want you to welcome the Salisbury Kwanzaa Last-Minute Get-it-Together African Band.”
Everyone in the audience laughed and cheered. And then danced along to the music that band members produced.
“It sounds like James Brown’s band back there,” Akinlana said at one point.
He reminded those in attendance of all that can be generated when everyone works toward a common goal.
“One tree does not make a forest,” Akinlana said. “One thread does not make a fabric. I want you to go back to the community and remember that.”