Africana Center's groundbreaking celebrated with words and ritual

Cornell President Emeritus Dale Corson, left, and Professor James Turner, founding director of the Africana Studies and Research Center, pause at the site of groundbreaking ceremonies for the center's expansion, June 12. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

By Franklin Crawford

Dorothy Désir is an art historian and independent scholar who has co-curated an exhibit ("Gendered Visions") at Cornell's Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. But June 12, during Cornell's Reunion 2004 weekend, Désir appeared at the Africana Studies and Research Center's groundbreaking ceremony in an entirely different role -- that of priestess in the Haitian Vodou tradition. Attired in the elegant starched white dress of her office and accompanied by master drummers Maurice Haltom and Eddie Biko Smith, Désir conducted a "libation ceremony" to bless the site of the Africana Center's renovation and expansion.

"Today we ask divine presence permission to break ground, so that the foundation of knowledge of the past and knowledge yet uncovered can come together in an unbroken circle," Désir told an audience of almost 200 people that included Africana faculty and staff, members of the Cornell Black Alumni Association (CBAA) and Cornell administrators past and present.

Désir completed the ritual, which was held under a tent pitched on the planned building site in front of the current center, anointing a symbolic pile of earth with a spray of rum and water. Six spade shovels bearing red, black and green ribbons were then put to their ceremonial use by university representatives, including the day's speakers: Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman; Provost Biddy Martin; Salah Hassan, the Africana Center's acting director; James Turner, the center's founding director; Regina Little-Durham '78, president of the CBAA; and Class of '04 graduates David E. Jackson II and Ifunanya Maduka, student member of the Cornell Board of Trustees.

Dorothy Désir blesses the ground during the ceremony. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

The blessing honored the construction phase of a project that coincides with the 35th anniversary of the center's founding, in the fall of 1969, and the Willard Straight Hall takeover at Cornell, the previous spring. Although the center was approved prior to the student occupation of the university's student union, the center and its Africana studies program was the direct result of demands from African-American students for representative studies and facilities.

"Credit goes to all our students and members of our community who fought very hard 35 years ago to establish a center and to the founding director, Professor James Turner," said Hassan, who in his opening remarks also credited "faculty who over the years worked hard to maintain [the center], develop it and call for expansion programmatically and intellectually."

Martin seconded Hassan's praise of students and, in particular, Africana's long-term faculty members and their commitment to the university as a whole. She said the Africana project has been close to her heart since she was named provost and she wished she were speaking at the dedication of the building, which is slated to open in January 2005.

The building project calls for the renovation and expansion of the existing Africana Center and construction of an additional building to house the center's John Henrik Clarke Library and a multipurpose room.

Ralph T. Jackson, principal architect for the project with the Boston-based architecture firm of Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott, flew in from Boston to attend the ceremony. Standing beside several architectural drawings of the project placed on easels, Jackson and Peter Karp, Cornell university architect, fielded questions from alumni, the media and others. Jackson said the multicolored brick cladding of the building's exterior will be arranged in three "elaborate patterns that allude to African textiles." He said the facility was envisioned as an ensemble of three pavilions, giving the feel of a mini-village with three distinct identities: scholarship (the library); community (the multipurpose room); and leadership (faculty and classrooms in the renovated building).

Taking part in the groundbreaking for the Africana Studies and Research Center project, June 12, are, from left, President Jeffrey Lehman, Professor James Turner, Director and Associate Professor Don Ohadike, Acting Director and Associate Professor Salah Hassan, Provost Biddy Martin, David Jackson '04, Funa Maduka '04 and Regina Little-Durham '78. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

Taking the podium to cheers and applause, Turner praised the vigorous support of more than two generations of Cornell students, lauded the founding team of the center, naming each of them, and paid homage to Cornell trustee Robert Purcell and three key Cornell administrators from that time: President Emeritus Dale Corson; Keith Kennedy, former vice provost; and Don Cook, former dean of the Graduate School. Corson, Kennedy and Cook all attended the groundbreaking ceremony, and Turner said that "without them, our course might have been very different."

"Critical to our success has been the unwavering institutional support both from the executive branch of the university and the trustees," he said. "We are grateful for Dale's leadership, his steadfast commitment and his accessibility and integrity, always being a leader who you could trust and to whom you could talk. Thank you, Dale."

Turner then thanked Kennedy and Cook, bestowing high praise and regard for each.

Reflecting later on the event, Corson spoke of Turner's dedication and hard work. Of the groundbreaking, Corson, who witnessed the tumultuous era that led to the center's founding, said he was pleased that it was "a happy occasion and that everybody was in a positive frame of mind."

The occasion was, in fact, remarkable for its spirit of optimism and sense of promise. Having delivered a glowing State of the University address that morning (see story, Page 1), Lehman said both he and his wife, Kathy Okun, who accompanied him, were honored to be part of the Africana Center celebration. He said the new Africana Center not only will house the growing collections of the Clarke library and offer a multipurpose room to support programmatic needs but "will also reflect the culture and the aesthetics of the African diaspora in its design."

"Most of all," Lehman continued, "it will be a facility that is an outward expression of the hopes and the aspirations of the people, including faculty, staff, students, graduates and trustees, represented in such impressive abundance here today, whose combined efforts brought us to this day."

Daisy Rowe, who was an original member of the Africana Center's administrative support staff, said the groundbreaking was something she's been "looking forward to for a long, long time." Alumna Regina Hicks '78, human development, recalled the impressive faculty at Africana in her undergraduate years, naming John Henrik Clarke and Dalton Jones, among others. Edward Wilson '69, engineering, said having an Africana Center on campus when he was a student "would have made things a lot easier for me."

Paul Clark, a 1974 Cornell civil engineering alumnus with a master's in history, said he feels he got the full "Cornell experience" and that the Africana Center played a big part in it. "I am pleased to see things moving along," Clark said.