In collaboration with The Tribes Project, the 911 Media Arts Center partnered with Garfield High School and Langston Hughes Cultural Arts Center to offer a video production program. The Tribes Media Project at Garfield High School was a group of 12 students who met after school to learn about media production from 911 Media Arts Center instructors. The group’s two main goals were to make their own video about race and to document the Tribes Theater Project.

The Tribes Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to the presentation of true multicultural perspectives of race relations on the stage and beyond. This documentary is from the Seattle Channel Collection at Seattle Municipal Archives.

Content advisory: The Maafa Suite is a theater production that draws on the experience of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and its resultant centuries of trauma.

Footage of the first Seattle performance of The Maafa Suite at the Moore Theatre in 2001. This original theatrical commemoration was created by first presented in 1995 as a production of the St. Paul Community Baptist Church, Brooklyn, New York. In addition to hosting The Maafa Suite at the church, the production has toured around the United States to cities including Dallas, Chicago, Baltimore, Atlanta, Bridgeport, and Seattle. The Seattle production was performed at the Moore Theatre in July of 2001 and 2002. The Maafa Suite was the inspiration for Sankofa Theatre, and members of the production team went on to work with the Sankofa Theatre team, including Seattle Ensemble Director Justin Emeka.

The Maafa Suite covers a period in World History that African Americans refer to as the Maafa, a Ki-Swahili word that means holocaust, and was neologized to encompass the atrocities of the slave trade. Through drama, song, rhythm, and dance, The Maafa Suite tells a story of Africans confronted with the arrival of white slavers, the voyage of Africans to America, and the complex circumstances under which enslaved Africans were oppressed. Now in its 11th season, the production inspires and uplifts as it reminds us of the resiliency of the human spirit.