The Vodou Lakou
The Negro Church
The Negro Church
"For ten years I have been interested in the lakou "a kind of vital space, a place of multidimensional life where several families or rather, an extended family shares all aspects of life (spiritual, economic, cultural). In fact, the lakou has three functions: preservation, protection, and renewal."
~Mimerose Beaubrun, Nan Domi: An Initiate's Journey into Haitian Vodou
Photo Credit: Lakou Souvenance, Gonaives Haiti
Lakou Souvenance is one of the rare places in Haiti where the dance and ritual traditions of the former Kingdom of Dahomey have been preserved in one of their most intact forms. Founded in 1815, reportedly by a Royal Dahomean figure, Jean Baptiste “Papa Bwa” Bois, this lakou stands today as a symbol of cultural survival, where African spiritual systems were not erased but maintained, structured, and transmitted across generations. (Source)
The Negro Church
The Negro Church
The Negro Church
"The Negro Church is the only social institution of the Negroes which started in the African forest and survived slavery; under the leadership of priest or medicine man, afterward of the Christian pastor, the Church preserved in itself the remnants of African tribal life and became after emancipation the center of Negro social life. So that today the Negro population of the United States is virtually divided into church congregations which are the real units of race life."
~ WEB Dubois, Report of the Third Atlanta Conference, 1898
Photo Credit: Charles Street AME Church, Boston MA
In 1818, a small group of African Americans began meeting on Sunday mornings for Christian worship in a small house on Beacon Hill. This weekly gathering gave birth to what eventually became the Historic Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church. For two hundred years, this activist-congregation has faithfully served as a center for Black religious and civic activities in Boston. (Source)
A Visual Journey of The Project's 3D Printing Process
