The Battalion – Texas A&M (College Station, TX), June 15, 2005
Summary:
Juneteenth, traditionally celebrated on June 19, recognizes the day the Emancipation Proclamation was first read in Texas, freeing slaves. Alafia Gaidi’s presentation, “Freedom’s Legacy: Africa’s Gifts,” will be a part of the George Bush Presidential Library’s Storytellers Guild and educators’ seminar celebrating Juneteenth.
Gaidi has been spreading the importance of education and tolerance of others for years through storytelling using monologues and musical instruments.
“Education starts within us as individuals as a center point of knowledge,” said Gaidi, a musician with the reggae group D.R.U.M. “By learning and sharing information that we do not know about one another, our knowledge is able to grow outwards, allowing us to improve ourselves. Through this lifetime movement, we are able to accept one another and to continue to gain knowledge that we would have otherwise never known.”
Gaidi said many children and adults have learned a lot from his stories, which concern blacks, Hispanics and women on the Texas frontier and old West. Gaidi said through the stories, people are better able to understand and accept one another.
Subjects Covered: diversity training, education