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Middle Passage Remembrance Day marked in the US

Offerings of water, honey and rum were to be poured along the shores of South Carolina and New York yesterday, honoring the millions of Africans who died crossing the Atlantic during the slave trade.

Middle Passage Remembrance Day, held on the second Saturday in June, recalls those whose graves are marked only by unbroken waves.

"We must, we must, honor our ancestors," said Tony Akeem, who has for 18 years organized the remembrance at Coney Island, New York.

The ceremony grew from a 1989 conference at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York, where Akeem works as a photographer. Other events have spread to Philadelphia, San Francisco, Brazil and Ghana, Akeem said. Most were started by people who have attended the New York event, he said.

It is the 10th year for the South Carolina ceremony, and as many as 100 people were expected at a Fort Moultrie dock on Sullivans Island near Charleston.

The first slaves arrived in Charleston in 1670, the same year the Carolina colony was created. Historians estimate nearly 40 percent of the millions of slaves brought to what became the US passed through Charleston.

"The stories run pretty strong that there were people who realized they were enslaved and would rather drown than be enslaved and when allowed up on the decks, would just jump into the water," said Fran Norton of the Fort Sumter National Monument, which includes Fort Moultrie. "It commemorates those people who gave up their lives for freedom."

Just how many perished in the slave trade will never be known.
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