On a recent morning before sunrise, dozens of people dressed in white, holding bouquets of flowers and fresh fruits, gathered at the Historic Virginia Key Beach for a solemn remembrance of those that died during the transatlantic slave trade.
An estimated 2 million people were lost at sea during the Middle Passage — the brutal forced voyages that carried over 10 million African captives across the Atlantic to the Americas.
The Sunrise Ancestral Remembrance of the Middle Passage ceremony has been held at 5:30 a.m. annually for decades.
Before this year's ceremony started, Regina Wilson, 73, waited by the shore, looking out at the vast Atlantic.
For Wilson, the more than 400-year history of the transatlantic slave trade stretches far beyond America’s coasts.
“Some of us got dropped off at the port of Haiti, Brazil, Panama, the Caribbean.” Wilson said, adjusting her head scarf on the beach. “I know now that our people could’ve been in the same community, [but they were] stolen and then dispersed around the world.”
Relics of slave ship wrecks are embedded in South Florida’s coasts. Among the most well known is the Guerrero, a pirate slave ship that was headed to Cuba with 561 captive Africans on board. But the vessel wrecked on a reef in the Florida Keys in 1827. Forty-one people drowned with the ship, while the surviving captives on board were sold into slavery in Cuba.
READ MORE: Keys underwater memorial to wrecked slave ship draws pilgrims seeking to connect with their roots
The submerged history of ships like the Guerrero is what activist Altine Baki has been trying to uncover since 1992, when she started organizing this ceremony.
“We really need to address that right there,” Baki said, “You can’t run around not knowing your history. You have a responsibility.”
But, for Baki, her insistence on having this ceremony at the Historic Virginia Key Beach goes beyond its proximity to the Atlantic.
“We were doing this before this actually became Virginia Key Park Trust,” Baki said.
“The beach was actually closed, but I used to go get the permit from the city — all of that — just to be out here.”
/ Miami Herald
The Historic Virginia Key Beach was Miami’s only officially designated beach for Black residents in Miami-Dade during segregation. For decades, its shore served as a safe haven for Black families and different cultural communities that flocked to the area, including new immigrants from the Caribbean and South America.
“It’s the Black beach.” Baki said, leaning forward.
As this year's ceremony got underway, community members placed flowers, fruits, corn, and rice onto a raft of palm leaves. By sunrise, the offering would be sent out to sea.
Dinizulu Gene Tinnie, a former chair of the Virginia Key Park Trust, gathered attendees on the beach into a circle. Children and elders stood side by side, facing the ocean.
“There were lives that mattered that were just lost [at sea]. But you are not forgotten.” Tinnie said, partly facing the Atlantic, “We may not know your names but we know you were there. And we want you to know that we are continuing.”
In the crowd, attendees shouted the word “Asé”, a Yoruba expression roughly translated as “so be it” or "amen".
Raining Deer, a member of the Cox-Osceola Seminole Tribe, formally opened the ceremony.
“As the celebrations for the 250th founding of these United States are ongoing,” Raining Deer said, holding a feather in her hand. “Acts like these are acts of defiance against those who try to silence history.”
As the sun rose over the beach, community members pushed the raft into the ocean. Among them was Harold Braynon, who has been teaching history for over 30 years in Miami-Dade public schools.
“I’ve been coming out [to the Historic Virginia Key Beach] for over 60 years.” Braynon said, his clothes still damp from the water, “This is a very unique experience. I’m a historian, so I know about this [history], but this is the first time I was actually able to participate in the process.”
Miami-Dade public schools, like all public schools in Florida, have specific standards for teaching African American history, one of which is to instruct middle school students that enslaved people in America derived “in some instances … personal benefit” from slavery — a claim that has been denied by historians and educators alike.
READ MORE: Critics slam Florida's Black history lesson on 'benefit' of slavery
Braynon tells his students that the way we tell history can sometimes not fully align with what really happened.
“Just like I tell my students,” Braynon said, leaning forward, “It’s the golden rule effect; he who has the gold makes the rule. History is not black, it’s not white. It’s just history and it’s all inclusive.”
By sunrise, the raft had completely disappeared into the sea, likely sinking to the ocean floor or being consumed by marine life — a symbolic reminder of the millions that died in the Atlantic during the slave trade.
For those that gathered on the beach, however, this ceremony served as a reminder that this history will not be submerged.
"When I join the ancestors," Baki said "Please carry this on."
