My Opinions About The Black American Group Referents "African American", "ADOS" & "FBA"

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post is presented as an update of a 2020 post that I published entitled "How "African American" Won The "What Should We Be Called?" Contest" (and other comments about the "African American" referent)." https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/09/how-african-american-won-what-should-we.html

That post remains in this blog. Visitor comments are welcome for that post as well as all other pancocojams posts. 

The content of this post is presented for historical and socio-cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all the online resources that I used in this post.
 -snip-
Click 
https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/11/what-is-percentage-of-black-people-in.html for the 2026 pancocojams post entitled "What Is The Percentage Of Black People In The USA In 2026? And Which State Has The Highest Number & The Lowest Number Of Black People?

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EXCERPT FROM THE 2020 PANCOCOJAMS POST ENTITLED "HOW AFRICAN AMERICAN" WON THE "WHAT SHOULD WE CALL OURSELVES" CONTEST"...

https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/09/how-african-american-won-what-should-we.html

[Pancocojams Editor: This is a slightly revised version of an essay that I wrote in 2005 and published on the Mudcat Folk music discussion thread.]

written by Azizi Powell, September 11, 2020

"Once upon a time, as I'm sure that you're aware, some people of African descent in the United States used the referent 'African' to describe themselves. As evidence of this, one can point to the Protestant denominations "AME" (African Methodist Episcopal) and "AME Zion" (African Methodist Episcopal Zion).

Time passed. Time passed. And eventually some people of African descent preferred to be called "Negroes" (note the capital "n"). But other people in that same population preferred to be called "Colored". Actually, "Colored" could be considered an apt name for that population given the wide range of skin colors for individuals within our group- from white, and many shades of brown, to blue black. Perhaps for that reason "Colored people" is the group referent that was selected to describe us by one of our most active national organizations, the NAACP (The National Association Of Colored People). The term "colored people" remains in the name of that civil rights organization. However, while the word "Colored" aptly suggests the melanin in our complexions, that word doesn't link us to any geographical place. Therefore, some of us weren't happy with that name.

In the mid to late 1960s, the referents for Black Americans were really in flux. During that time, a number of African countries were becoming independent nations. For the first time that many of us were aware, the continent of Africa, and African cultures were getting some favorable press. Thus for a growing number of Black Americans it was a matter of pride to be identified with historical & contemporary mother Africa.

At that same time in the United States, the "melting pot theory" was being ditched for the 'multi-cultural' mosaic theory on how American culture is shaped. As a result of this paradigm shift, the mass media was paying more attention to the positive contributions that each hyphenated ethnic group in the United States provided to the whole.

If was therefore not surprising that eventually the terms "Afro-American" and "Afra-American" were added to the list of hyphenated Americans [although as per Americans' custom to simplify things, the two words came to be used without the hyphen]. Because of multi-culturalism you heard more about "Italian Americans", "Asian Americans", "Native Americans", and "Irish Americans". And you also heard about "European Americans", although I believe California's Latino Americans started using the group referent "Anglo American" instead of "European American" and the use of that referent has spread from there.

However, some formerly Negro, formerly Colored people argued that we should just use "black" or "black Americans' as our formal group referent. But everyone didn't agree. The contenders for the "what should be the formal referent for Black folks in the United States" were African, Negro, Colored, Black (or black), Afro-American and others but definitely NOT the "n word".

For a while "Afro-American" appeared to winning the competition to be chosen as our formal group referent & personal referent. But then a number of Black folks noticed that the beginning word for all other hyphenated population names in the USA referred to a geographical place-a homeland. And these same folks or others noticed that 'afro' spelled with a small 'a' was the name of a natural hairstyle that was gaining prominence at that time among some segments of Black Americans. Few brothers and sisters wanted their formal group name to be confused with the name of a hairstyle, especially not one that some Black folks had problems accepting. Black power was on the rise and activist Reverend Jesse Jackson and some other noted Black leaders began to assert that our group name should promote a connection with the glories of Africa past and the promise of Africa now and in the future.

What name would it be? "Why, 'African American' of course!" the leaders exclaimed. And the people followed their leaders' lead as people usually do.

So that was how "African American" won the "what-should-we-be called?" contest. And that is why "African American" remains the formal referent for Black Americans today.

[Sat on a pin. My story end.]

-Azizi Powell
9/1/2011 "
-snip-
That comment may not be clear about my view-then and now- that the racial term "Black" is the most frequently used self-identifier and group referent for people who are referred to (and usually refer to ourselves as) "African American".

My sense then and now is that "Black" (or "Black American") is the informal referent and "African American" is the formal referent . Also, I believed when I first wrote the prototype for this essay in 2005 and largely believe now that most Black Americans usually consider "Black American" and "African American" to be the same population. However, since 2019 the meaning of and use of those two referents is changing because of the "Foundational Black American" stance that they aren't African or that their ancestors' being from Africa long ago isn't as important as them being descendants of people who were enslaved in the United States. 

The followers of the FBA and ADOS movements believe that it's important for Black Americans to "delineate" (meaning to publicly declare their ancestry/lineage). Based on the online sources that I have come across, it appears the FBA/ADOS movements have negative opinions about Black people who emigrated to the United States from the Caribbean or Africa after the emancipation of enslaved Black people in 1865, referring to those people and their descendants using the derogatory term "tethers".

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MY COMMENT ABOUT THE TERM "ADOS" FROM THE "HOW AFRICAN AMERICAN" WON THE CONTEST" ETC. POST

This comment was added on September 11, 2020 to the "How African Amerian" Won The Contest" etc.pancocojams post: 

"I've just recently become aware of the term "ADOS". Here's an excerpt from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Descendants_of_Slavery.:
"Members of American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) are descendants of enslaved Africans, their captors (European slavers), and the original inhabitants of the North American continent during the time of chattel slavery and the Atlantic slave trade. They are descendants of at least one ancestor who was forced into slavery within the established colonies in North America during the time of chattel slavery..."American Descendants of Slavery" refers specifically to the descendants of the enslaved people held in captivity in North America during the initial establishment of the United States (from the colonial era onward)."...

-snip-
Given that definition, I'm not an ADOS on my mother's side since my maternal grandparents were Black people from the Caribbean. (I've been told that my maternal grandmother's grandmother was White, but I don't know if this was true or not.)

Also, given that definition, I'm not sure if I'm ADOS on my father side since he was a light skinned Black man who was adopted as a child by a Black family in Michigan. This was way back in the 1920s. I've been told by a family member whose into genealogy that my father's biological parents were from New York City, but I haven't seen any written verification of this.  I believe that my father was adopted instead of fostered since he had the same last name as my paternal grandparents who I only met one time. Based on his skin color, I assume that my father probably had some White ancestry, but I don't know who or where. At any rate, we don't know if he had enslaved Black ancestors or not. 

Contrary to the ADOS movement, I'm proof that it's possible to be African American without having any known ancestors who were enslaved in the United States. And there's lots of other examples of how a person can be African American without having any known ancestors who were enslaved in the United States."

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MY COMMENT ABOUT THE TERM "FBA" 
[written by Azizi Powell, Nov. 2, 2026]
The term "ADOS" is rarely used now by the very small population of Black Americans who used it in 2020. That term has largely been replaced by "FBA" ("Foundational Black Americans"). My sense is that only a very small number of Black Americans in 2026 refer to themselves and other Black Americans as FBA online or offline. However, the number of Black people who use FBA online appears to be growing.

Here's some information about the term "FBA" (retrieved from Wikipedia on November 2, 2026)

Source #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundational_Black_Americans
"Foundational Black Americans (FBA) is a term used in contemporary social and political discourse to describe a subset of Black Americans who trace their ancestry to people enslaved in the United States. The designation emphasizes lineage connected to American chattel slavery and the historical experiences that followed, including Reconstruction, segregation, and systemic discrimination.[1]

Definition and usage

The term "Foundational Black Americans" is used by some commentators and community members to distinguish descendants of enslaved Black people in the United States from Black immigrants and their descendants. It is often invoked in discussions related to identity, historical continuity, and policy debates surrounding reparations and resource allocation.[2] 

Usage of the term has appeared across media platforms, including television segments, political discussions, and online discourse.

[…]

Public discourse and criticism

The term has generated debate among commentators, journalists, and political observers. Supporters argue that it provides a framework for recognizing the specific historical experiences of descendants of enslaved people in the United States, particularly in discussions related to reparations, representation, and social equity.[9]

Critics have raised concerns about the term's implications, arguing that it may contribute to divisions within the broader Black population or oversimplify complex histories of migration and identity. Media coverage has also linked discussions of the term to broader issues such as misinformation, political discourse, and identity debates in digital spaces."....
-snip-
I don't (can't) identify as FBA or ADOS because 

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Source #2

From AI Overview

The term "Foundational Black American" (FBA) was first coined and published in January 2019 by media personality and author Tariq Nasheed.

Overview of the Term

Definition: It describes Black Americans who are direct descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States, distinguishing them from voluntary Black immigrants.
Origin: Tariq Nasheed introduced the acronym and concept on social media and digital discourse in early 2019 as a lineage-based identity.
Context: The term emerged alongside discussions regarding historical continuity, resource allocation, and the reparation movement.

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II. WHEN DID "NEGRO" BECOME SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE?"
From http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/01/when_did_the_word_negro_become_taboo.html
...." When did the word Negro become socially unacceptable?
It started its decline in 1966 and was totally uncouth by the mid-1980s. The turning point came when Stokely Carmichael coined the phrase black power at a 1966 rally in Mississippi. Until then, Negro was how most black Americans described themselves. But in Carmichael's speeches and in his landmark 1967 book, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America, he persuasively argued that the term implied black inferiority. Among black activists, Negro soon became shorthand for a member of the establishment. Prominent black publications like Ebony switched from Negro to black at the end of the decade, and the masses soon followed. According to a 1968 Newsweek poll, more than two-thirds of black Americans still preferred Negro, but black had become the majority preference by 1974. Both the Associated Press and the New York Times abandoned Negro in the 1970s, and by the mid-1980s, even the most hidebound institutions, like the U.S. Supreme Court, had largely stopped using Negro."

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III. OTHER COMMENTS WITH A FOCUS ON THE TERM "ADOS"
A. Here's a comment that I added to a discussion about what group referent are used by Caribbean people living in the USA:

"I think people should take with a grain of salt (meaning not automatically believe) what any one Black person from the USA says about which self-referent/s or group referents people of African descent (including people of Caribbean descent) use in the USA.

I don't believe that there is one definite answer regarding the questions:

1. Which referent/s do people use for themselves if they have some Black African descent and they are from the Caribbean and/but they live in the United States?

2. Which referent/s for themselves do the descendants of those people so described above use if they were born in the USA and/or they live in the United States?

And when can those people and their descendants legitimately refer to themselves as "African Americans"?

I think that personal choice plays a BIG role in which referents ALL of these people can legitimately use.

On a personal note, my maternal grandmother was from Barbados and my maternal grandfather was from Trinidad. I have no recollection of them EVER referring to themselves as "Bajan" or Trinididian" or "Caribbean". My grandfather died in the late 1950s and probably referred to himself by whichever racial referents for Black people in the United States were being used at that time [Negro, Colored People]. My grandmother died in the 1980s but because of her age and because of custom, she probably also referred to herself as a "Negro" or a "Colored" person. I have no recollection whatsoever of my mother, my maternal aunt, and my maternal uncles ever referring to themselves as "Caribbean" or "Black Caribbean" or "Bajan" or "Trini" or "Trinidadian". They also used/use whatever racial referents for Black people were currently being used in the USA.

Note: my mother and two of my uncles were born in the USA, but my aunt and my other uncles were born in Barbados. But, to my knowledge, that didn't effect how they referred to themselves. Also, I believe that my maternal grandparents and my maternal aunt & uncles who weren't born in the USA had green cards, but I don't know if they ever became USA citizens. But my contention is that my relatives who were born in Barbados used the same self-referents as many Black people born in the USA i.e. "Negro", "Colored People", and later "Black" and "African American".

Although I'm a Black "Unitedstater" who has some Caribbean ancestry, I have NEVER referred to myself as "Caribbean" or "Afro-Caribbean" or "Black Caribbean". I now use the referents "African American" formally and informally use "Black" or "Black American". However, depending on the circumstances, I might also share that my maternal grandparents were from the Caribbean and I might also share which Caribbean nations they were from.

And the two times that my daughter [who is 3rd generation Caribbean on her maternal side] went to the Caribbean festival "Caribana" in Toronto, Canada, she purchased and waved a Trinidadian flag, mostly just for fun.

In my opinion, more people should recognize that there are multiple ethnic groups among African Americans. "Caribbean" is an ethnic group/s. So is "Creole" and "Gullah" and so, for example, is "Kenyan" or "Nigerian" when people born in those nations live in the United States and their descendants are born in the United States.

Sharing information about my Caribbean ancestry doesn't mean that I'm less of an African American. It just adds more information about my roots"
- Azizi Powell, http://afroeurope.blogspot.com/2012/06/video-hip-hop-on-trial-hip-hop-doesnt.html ; 7/5/2012

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B. Azizi PowellJune 2, 2013 at 7:58 AM

After re-reading this post, I want to add these comments:

The term "negro" with a lower case "n" is sometimes used by African Americans in writing & in speech as a pejorative. A "negro" (lower case) is a male or female who puts his or her interests ahead of other members of his racial group. He is an "Uncle Tom" (This pejorative is sometimes shortened to "Tom"). She is an "Aunt Jemima" (although the term "Aunt Jemima" is much less often used that "Uncle Tom", and I've seen instances in writing where females are called "toms").

I do not refer to myself or anyone else of any race or ethnicity as what is now called "the n word". I don't use that word and don't fully spell it out. I don't accept the notion of re-claiming that word and REALLY don't like it when anyone regardless of his or her race/ethnicity uses it.

By the way, I recognize that there are multiple Black ethnicities. For instance, there are numerous ethnic groups in Africa (I prefer the term "ethnic groups" to tribes. How often do you see or hear "tribe" used in reference to White Europeans? Why is that term only used for People of Color?)

I also recognize that there are many different types of African Americans such as African Americans who are of Gullah descent, or specific Native American descent, or specific Caribbean descent, or a person who is of mixed Black/ other race or ethnicity (which most African Americans refer to as "mixed). In the USA, "mixed" people who have some Black ancestry are considered by most Black Americans to be Black.

In addition, I consider that other African American or other Black ethnic groups are those African Americans or other Black people who are Afro-European because they were born in Europe, or specific South American descent etc.
I'm aware that Australian indigenous people and
some people from Melanesia consider themselves to be Black and therefore I consider them Black too.

Actually, my position is that anyone who considers themselves to be Black, and anyone who considers himself to be African American regardless of their skin color, hair type and other physical features is Black.

Also, with regard to people who are of mixed racial ancestry (particularly persons who are of first generation mixed racial ancestry), it seems to me that that person should be able to accepted by other persons as a member of both races/ancestry. But given the still widespread existence of institutional racism and the widespread existence of personal racism, it's likely that if that person "looks Black", he or she won't be fully accepted as a member of a non-Black race or ethnicity.

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C. Azizi PowellJuly 2, 2013 at 5:51 PM

Here's one way to understand the difference between "Black" ("black") and "African American":

Think about the relationship between males and people. All males are people but all people aren't males.

In the same way, according to the definition of that term that people in the United States use, all African Americans are Black, but all Black people aren't African Americans.

In other words, "African American" is a sub-set of "Black". There are far more Black people in the world than there are African Americans.

For the most part, "Black" refers to people with some Black African descent, although people can debate what "Black African descent" means. I wrote "for the most part" because there are Black people in the world-in Australia, in India, in Melanesia etc- who aren't of Black African descent...but, if you go back far enough, everybody is of Black African descent.

For various reasons, some African Americans (Black Americans) don't like the referent "Black". However, I consider "Black" (spelled with either a capital "B" or a lower case "b") to be an informal referent for the population of people who up to the mid 1960s were referred to as "Negroes" (always spelled with a capital "N"). And I consider "African American" (always spelled with capital "A"s) to be the formal referent for that population."

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The Saying "We're Sick And Tired Of Being Sick And Tired" (with videos of Civil Rights Activist Fannie Lou Hamer & Former President Barack Obama)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post presents information about the saying "We're sick and tired of being sick and tired." 

This post showcases a YouTube video of 1960s Mississippi Civil Rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer who is widely credited as coining this saying.

This post also showcases a October 24, 2026 YouTube video of President Obama using this saying in the speech he gave in Cleveland, Ohio in support of Democratic candidates in the United States midterm election.   

The content of this post is presented for historical and socio-cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Fannie Lou Hamer and thanks to Barack Obama for their words and for their actions.

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE SAYING "WE'RE SICK AND TIRED OF BEING SICK AND TIRED

Source #1

AI Overview

"Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer first used the phrase "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired" during her speeches and activism in 1964.

Origin and Meaning

Who said it: Fannie Lou Hamer, a leader in the civil rights movement and co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

When: August and December 1964, most notably during her powerful addresses and a speech in Harlem alongside Malcolm X.

Context: Hamer used the phrase to describe the deep physical and emotional exhaustion caused by enduring generations of racial discrimination, police violence, poverty, and voter suppression in the Jim Crow South."

**
Source #2
From https://blackher.us/heres-to-you-fannie-lou-hamer-we-are-all-sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired/ “Here’s to You Fannie Lou Hamer. We are All Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired.”
by Angela Dorn | Mar 12, 2018 | Articles |
"Ever since I read about her in the 1990’s, I have been a fan of Fannie Lou Hamer. Until she joined the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, Fannie Lou Hamer was an ordinary black woman living a difficult life in rural Mississippi. Her birthright, as a poor, black, female Mississippian was an unfulfilling life of humiliation, pain and near indentured servitude as a sharecropper. Hamer fought all of this when she took up the mantle of activism.

According to FemBio,

“Fannie Lou Hamer was born on October 6, 1917, in rural Montgomery County Mississippi.  She was the twentieth child of Jim and Lou Ella Townsend. The family moved to Sunflower County when Fannie Lou was two years old, and she began working in the cotton fields at age six. Sharecroppers, her parents finally earned enough to rent land and buy mules and a car. However, the family was plunged back into poverty when a white neighbor poisoned the mules because he did not want to see the Townsend’s succeed. 

In 1944, the owner of the plantation on which the Townsend’s worked discovered that Fannie Lou could read and write, and employed her as the time and record keeper. A year later, she married a tractor driver on the plantation named Perry Hamer. The Hamers made their home in Ruleville, and Fannie Lou spent the next eighteen years as a sharecropper and plantation record keeper.

When the Civil Rights Movement came to Ruleville in 1962, Fannie Lou Hamer quickly became an active participant. With training and encouragement from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Hamer and several other local residents attempted to register to vote but were unsuccessful because they did not pass the infamous literacy tests. In retaliation for trying to register, Hamer was fired from her job, received phone threats, and was nearly a victim of gunshots fired into a friend’s home. But Hamer was not intimidated: by 1963 she was a field secretary for SNCC and after many efforts to do so successfully registered to vote.”

During the fight for the right to vote, while seeing slow (but steady) progress, Fannie Lou Hamer famously said that she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.”  It was a reference to her dismay at having to fight to the death for rights that were fundamental to Whites and other Americans but denied to Blacks.

Hamer was tired of battling to get more out of her life, which was structurally designed to block her from any real opportunity. It was clear that some Mississippians believed that Hamer and other Black people were born for the sole purpose of working for White field owners at low, low wages. Fannie could see that her life and the lives of her friends and family would not change until Blacks stood up and fought for themselves. Neither she nor any other Black person in Mississippi would be “handed anything” – not even basic human decency.

The tiring and brutal fight was ultimately successful. In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act during the Johnson administration. 

I’m Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

Today, I am older then Fannie Lou Hamer was when she took up the mantle of activism. Because of her and people like her, even though I am an African American woman, I have not (yet) had to demand my right to vote. Nor, have I experienced the violence of a police baton or the terror of racist shots being fired at me. For this, I am grateful.  As a Black woman, the fact that my life is not filled with violence is a historical anomaly. Still, there are many days when I wake up so sick and tired that I don’t want to get out of bed. I fear that the day ahead will be filled with nonsense – policies designed to divide us and practices that cause so much pain.

[…]

Fifty years after Fannie Lou Hamer fought for her humanity and ours, I too am sick and tired of being sick and tired. Maybe you are too.”
-snip-
This is how this article is presented online.

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SHOWCASE VIDEO - Fannie Lou Hamer "We are Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired."



Paul Richards, Sep 12, 2018

During her 1964 campaign for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Fannie Lou Hamer addressed a rally saying "We are sick and  tired of being sick and tired." A clip from "Dream Deferred" by Harvey Richards (1964)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GulApYI8MOk
-snip-
Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIZ2a2J5v3g for a 2011 film clip in which "Mississippi civil right leader Fannie Lou Hamer tells her story in 1963. A clip from the documentary film ""We'll Never Turn Back" by Harvey Richards.  

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YOUTUBE VIDEO - Obama Campaigns in Ohio

The National Desk, October 24, 2026

Former President Obama campaigns with Ohio's Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Amy Acton, in Cleveland, Ohio.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16OhFDAnjhQ
-snip-
This saying is found around 1:10 to around 1:15 in this video.
Here's that video's transcript of that portion of that speech:
"And when you have been campaigning as long as I have been campaigning, when you've worked as many elections as I have, you can tell when an election comes along that just feels a little bit different.

[cheering]

An election where people are so ready for something new, so hungry for something better, so sick and tired of being sick and tired that everywhere you go, it feels like change is in

[cheering]

the air. And in Ohio, that's how I'm feeling right now."

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INFORMATION ABOUT FORMER PRESIDENT OBAMA'S USE OF THIS SAYING
AI Overview
"Former President Barack Obama used the phrase "sick and tired of being sick and tired" during campaign rallies ahead of the midterms to describe voters' frustrations with the current political climate.

Context of the Phrase 

• Recent Speeches: Obama used the line during campaign events in October 2026 (including stops in Cleveland, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan) while stumping for Democratic candidates.

• Meaning: He applied the expression—originally made famous by civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer—to characterize an electorate he says is hungry for change and exhausted by political division and the policies of the Trump • administration.

• Historical Usage: Obama has periodically invoked variations of this phrasing throughout his political career, dating back to his 2008 presidential campaign and historical addresses like the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, to highlight public weariness with stagnant progress or perceived political dysfunction."

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Why Are Some African American Social Dances With The Same Name Performed Differently By African Americans In Different United States Cities, States, or Regions (with a focus on the Percolator Dance)

Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest revision- October 19, 2026

This is Part I of a three part pancocojams series about the Percolator social dance that was created in Chicago, Illinois in 1992.

This post presents opinions about why African Americans  (within the same period of time and/or during later periods of time)* have the same name for social dances that are performed differently depending on what city, or part of the same city, or state/region in the United States that the dancers live/d in. 

The "Percolator" social dance is used in this post and in this pancocojams series as an example of this custom.

* Some African American social dances may have different names in different cities/regions of the United States. However, that custom isn't the focus of this particular pancocojams series.    
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/10/two-videos-of-what-some-people-claim.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. That post showcases two YouTube videos of what some discussion thread commenters claim are "old school"* versions of  the "percolator" dance. 

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/10/african-americans-in-2007-in-2019-doing.html for Part III of this pancocojams series. That post showcases two YouTube videos of allegedly old school versions of the Percolator. Selected comments from the discussion thread of Showcase Video #2 are also included in this post.  

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The content of this post is presented for historical, and socio-cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. 
-snip-
A closely related 2026 pancocojams series also presents information about and YouTube videos of what is alleged to be the Percolator dance. Those posts focus on the meaning of the Black American saying "the Cookout". Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/10/more-information-comments-about-african.html for one of those posts. The links to other posts in that series are given in each of those posts.

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DISCLAIMER
The statements that are given in this post from AI Overview may be inaccurate in whole or in part.

Please add to this subject by sharing your views on this subject in the comment section of this pancocojams post. Thanks!

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QUESTION AND RESPONSES ABOUT THIS SUBJECT

Source #1
 This AI Overview write-up is the result of my October 13, 2026 Google Search query: "Why do Black people in different United States cities have social dances that they perform differently than those dances are performed in other United States cities and regions?" (This AI Overview is given without citations.)

"AI Overview
Black people in different U.S. cities and regions have unique social dances because these movements grow out of localized community traditions, regional music scenes, and specific neighborhood identities.

Regional Music and Culture

• Local Soundtracks: Cities develop distinct musical subgenres—like bounce music in New Orleans, go-go in Washington, D.C., or house music in Chicago. Dances naturally evolve to match the specific tempos, drum patterns, and rhythms of local radio stations and neighborhood parties.

• Community Spaces: Juke joints, block parties, and local dance shows (like D.C.’s Teenarama) served as incubators where teenagers and adults tested, modified, and perfected signature steps.

Historical and Social Roots 

• Improvisation as Identity: African-American social dance is a living, community-driven language rather than top-down choreography. While a region agrees on the core baseline of a style (like Chicago Steppin or D.C. Hand Dance), individuals express personal and neighborhood identity through cadence and flow.

• Preservation of Belonging: Historically rooted in survival, resistance, and joy under systemic oppression, creating localized dance styles allowed communities to forge distinct spaces of dignity, healing, and cultural autonomy."
-snip-
This concludes that AI Overview results.

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Source #2:
 This AI Overview write-up is the result of my October 13, 2026 Google Search query: "Why do Black people in different United States cities have different versions of specific dances?" (This AI Overview is given without citations.)

"AI Overview

Black people in different U.S. cities have different versions of specific dances because regional music scenes, local community spaces, and the historical segregation of Black communities allowed unique styles to evolve independently.

Why Regional Dance Variations Exist

• Local Music Evolution: Cities developed distinct musical subgenres—like Go-Go in Washington, D.C., Bounce in New Orleans, or Detroit techno and hip-hop. Dancers naturally adapted their movements to match the exact tempo, heavy bass, or rhythm of local sounds.

• Geographic Isolation and Migration: During and after the Great Migration, Black Americans settled in tight-knit urban neighborhoods. Limited interaction between distant cities (before mass internet and social media) meant that a basic step traveling from Chicago to Atlanta or Baltimore would be remixed with local flair.

• Community Gathering Spaces: Local institutions—such as D.C.'s teen dance showcases, Chicago house clubs, or Baltimore juke joints—served as testing grounds where local youth added unique flourishes, hand placements, or footwork to distinguish their neighborhood or city.

• The Tradition of Improvisation: Rooted in West African dance traditions, Black vernacular dance places a high value on personal style, polyrhythms, and improvisation (making up steps on the spot). Dancers are encouraged to put their own signature spin on a baseline move rather than copy it rigidly.”
-end of write up-

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Source #3
 This AI Overview write-up is the result of my October 13, 2026 Google Search query: "Why are there so many versions of the Percolator dance?" (This AI Overview is given without citations.)

"AI Overview

 There are so many versions of the Percolator dance because it relies on heavy improvisation, regional sub-styles, and personal interpretation rather than a single set of rigid rules.

Roots in Improvisation and Energy

• No strict choreography: The dance originated in the early 1990s Chicago house music scene, tied to Cajmere’s (Green Velvet) track "Coffee Pot (It's Time for the Percolator)". From the start, it was designed as an energetic, fluid motion mimicking a bubbling coffee pot rather than a locked-in routine.

• Focus on feeling the beat: Dancers traditionally emphasize a rhythmic bounce, torso rolling, and fast footwork, but how intensely or loosely you execute those movements depends entirely on individual style.

Regional and Generational Shifts

• Geographic variation: While the authentic move is deeply rooted in Chicago's South Side and West Side house culture (with purists often critiquing out-of-town adaptations), different regions like Baltimore, Detroit, and various Southern scenes adapted the high-energy vibe to fit their local club styles.

• Social media trends: When the dance went viral on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, digital creators stripped away local context, creating simplified or altered versions—such as basic shoulder pops or specific line-dance adaptations—that anyone could easily copy.

This video compares old school and new school dance styles, showing how the Percolator and other underground movements evolve across generations:

https://www.tiktok.com/@itssamsanchez/video/7430890843982056734
Old School vs New School
Which style do you prefer?
@ItSamSanchez, 2024-10-28
Chicago"
-snip-
This concludes that AI Overview write-up.

Visit Part IV of this pancocojams series for a focus on Sam Sanchez and his performance of the Percolator (or the dance that he refers to and some commenters in his videos refer to as "the Percolator".

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Source #4
From https://www.facebook.com/ComedianTRaySanders/videos/the-percolator-dance-originated-in-chicago-emerging-from-the-citys-vibrant-house/4163600447303754/ "The Percolator Originated In Chicago"... by Comedian T-Ray Sanders, January 17, 2026
"The Percolator dance originated in Chicago, emerging from the city’s vibrant house music scene in the early 1990s, famously linked to Cajmere’s (Green Velvet) iconic track “Coffee Pot (It’s Time for the Percolator)”. It’s a fluid, repetitive dance mimicking a bubbling percolator, embodying Chicago’s creative and communal dance culture, with distinct South Side and West Side styles.

Key Details:

Origin City: Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Music: Tied to the 1992 house music classic “Coffee Pot (It’s Time for the Percolator)” by Cajmere (Green Velvet).

Style: Fluid, rhythmic, and repetitive movements that simulate a coffee percolator’s bubbling action.

Cultural Impact: A defining move in Chicago’s underground house scene, showcasing its DIY spirit and individuality.”
-snip-
"DIY”= "DO IT YOURSELF"

****
This concludes Part I of this pancocojams series.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Langston Hughes - "A Dream Deferred" (1951 poem information, words, & video) 2026 complete reprint

Edited by Azizi Powell

[This is a complete reprint of the 2014 pancocojams post on this subjec. That post is still found on this blog and is reprinted to increase its availability.]

This post showcases a YouTube example of Langston Hughes' 1951 poem "A Dream Deferred". This post also includes information about Langston Hughes and his "Dream Deferred" montage which contains the poem that begins "What happens to a dream deferred". The complete words to that short poem are also included in this post.

The content of this post is presented for cultural, historical, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Langston Hughes for his creative legacies. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.

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INFORMATION ABOUT LANGSTON HUGHES
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes
"James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance."...

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From http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/83
..."[Langston] Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in his book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred (Holt, 1951). His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself."...

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INFORMATION ABOUT LANGSTON HUGHES'S "MONTAGE OF A DREAM DEFERRED"
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montage_of_a_Dream_Deferred
"Montage of a Dream Deferred is a book-length poem suite published by Langston Hughes in 1951. Its jazz poetry style focuses on descriptions of Harlem (a neighborhood of New York City) and its mostly African-American inhabitants.[1] The original edition was 75 pages long and comprised 91 individually titled poems, which were intended to be read as a single long poem.[2] Hughes' prefatory note for the book explained his intentions in writing the collection:

In terms of current Afro-American popular music and the sources from which it progressed— jazz, ragtime, swing, blues, boogie-woogie, and be-bop—this poem on contemporary Harlem, like be-bop, is marked by conflicting changes, sudden nuances, sharp and impudent interjections, broken rhythms, and passages sometimes in the manner of a jam session, sometimes the popular song, punctuated by the riffs, runs, breaks, and disc-tortions of the music of a community in transition.[3]

The primary motif of the poem is the "dream deferred", which represents the opposition between Harlem of the 1950s and the rest of the world.[4] Other motifs include boogie-woogie and discrimination against African-Americans. The poem is characterized by its use of the montage, a cinematic technique of quickly cutting from one scene to another in order to juxtapose disparate images, and its use of contemporary jazz modes like boogie-woogie, bop and bebop, both as subjects in the individual short poems and as a method of structuring and writing the poetry.[5] The poem is divided into five sections (although some editions contain six); each section represents a different time of day in Harlem, moving from dawn through the night to the dawn of the following day. The poem begins and ends with the same two lines: "Good morning, daddy! / Ain't you heard?".[5] Montage of a Dream Deferred was Langston Hughes' first major publication following the end of World War II.[5] Its themes include the subjugation of the black community, African-American racial consciousness and history, and the need for social change to resolve the injustices faced by the residents of Harlem."
-snip-
The short poem that begins "What happens to a dream deferred" is part of this montage.

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WORDS TO THE POEM: DREAM DEFERRED (HARLEM)
By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79YjXKYeWCk

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SHOWCASE EXAMPLE

A Dream Deferred



Huntington Theatre Company, Published on Feb 13, 2013

What happens to a dream deferred? LeRoy McClain ("Walter Lee Younger" in the production) performs the classic poem by Langston Hughes. The Huntington's production of Lorraine Hansberry's timeless family story A RAISIN IN THE SUN, directed by Liesl Tommy, plays March 8 - April 7, 2013 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre.
-snip-
Click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Raisin_in_the_Sun to read about the 1959 play A Raisin In The Sun

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

Historical Documentation Of Ring Shouts In The 20th Century & 21st Century United States

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part II of at three part pancocojams series about ring shouts in the United States.

This post presents excerpts from a Wikipedia page and other online sources  about historical documentation, recollections, and anecdotal accountings of ring shouts in the 20th century and in the 21st century United States.


Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/09/historical-documentation-of-ring-shouts.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. That post  presents excerpts from a Wikipedia page about historical documentation of ring shouts in the 18th Century and 19th century United States.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/09/videos-of-african-american-ring-shouts_01862185101.html for Part III of this pancocojams series. That post showcases YouTube videos of ring shouts and YouTube videos of religious activities that developed from ring shouts.

These videos showcase traditional ring shouts, the Winnsboro Easter Rock, and the custom in some churches of the choir marching around the sanctuary. In the churches that follow this custom, that "march around" occurs during the portion of the church service that is dedicated to the collection/offering (i.e. receiving money from church members and other attendees of the church service).  

The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. 
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/08/two-videos-of-new-jersey-church-choir.html for the pancocojams post  entitled "One Jamaican Church Choir March Around & Three Black American Church Choirs March Arounds."

This post presents information about the custom of some Christian church choirs in the United States circling the church sanctuary in a movement that I refer to as "march arounds". 

Although this custom can be directly traced to its Jamaican roots (and the Jamaican ancestry of many of those United States churches' pastors and many of the Jamaican ancestry of the members of those churches, I also believe that these choir march arounds are a variant form of 18th and 19th century ring shouts. Furthermore, I believe that the still current custom in some (particularly) Black American Christian churches of people "feeling the Holy Spirit" during the church service and running around the sanctuary is also a variant form of the ring shout.

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SEVERAL ONLINE SOURCES ABOUT RING SHOUTS IN THE UNITED STATES (20th Century & 21st Century) 

These online sources are presented in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only.

ONLINE SOURCE #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_shout
"The ring shout is a distinctive African American ritual dance originating with enslaved Africans in the southern United States where worshippers move in a counterclockwise circle while hand-clapping, foot-patting and shuffling, stick-beating to foreground the rhythm, and call-and-response singing.[1][2][3] It is an oral tradition passed down in African American families since the era of slavery. Elders and religious leaders pass down songs and shouts to the younger generation. The practice of sacred circle dancing combines spirituals and rhythmic music, reflecting its Christian and African spiritual and cultural importance. Most scholars agree it is a "Black holy dance"[4] that developed in the living quarters of enslaved African practitioners[5] and Black Christian "praise houses"[3] through a fusion of Central and West African spiritual traditions (like counterclockwise circle dances, polyrhythms, and ancestor veneration),[1][3][6] and revivalistic Christian practices[3][4] in either the eighteenth[7][1][6] or nineteenth century.[4] The ring shout is part of the Black musical tradition.[8]

[...]

Oral interviews and ethnographic studies

Shirley Boteler Mock, who is a research fellow and author at the University of Texas at Austin, conducted a study of Black Seminole communities in Mexico and Texas and interviewed African American women. Mock's book was published in 2012 and the women interviewed spoke of their ancestors practicing the ring shout in churches in Brackettville, Texas in the 1930s. The Black Seminole women who practiced the ring shout combined Gullah Geechee spiritual beliefs of rootwork (herbalism) and dream reading.[38]

In 2017, the Smithsonian Institution Folkways Recording conducted interviews in Gullah Geechee communities in the Sea Islands of Georgia. The Mcintosh County ring shouters share their ring shout culture and family history. According to the ring shouters, the songs and dances in the ring shout were taught to them by their grandmothers and elders in the community and that their grandmothers learned the ring shout and songs from their elders and grandparents, 

The ring shout was believed to have died out by the mid-20th century, but in the 1980s, music folklorists heard of a community of traditional ring shouters near Eulonia, Georgia that had practiced it for generations. African American ring shouters of Bolden or "Briar Patch" perform the ring shout at Mt. Calvary Baptist Church to bring in the New Year during Watch Night.[41] 

Continuation

Griffin Lotson, whose ancestry traces back to enslaved Africans from Crescent, Georgia, is a slavery ring shout instructor and manager of the Gullah Geechee Ring Shouters. Lotson and the ring shouters travel the United States and the world teaching people about the history of the ring shout and its development in enslaved communities.[42] In a 2018 interview Lotson says this about the rings shout:[43]

"We don't try to add to it. We just do it. And now we are going to show that connection in Sierra Leone. We have been talking about it for decades, but this will be the first that you got U.S. citizens, descendants of Africa, that will go back and share the ring shout that was birthed on the plantation and they share that ring shout that originally came from Africa. The beat that we do came from Africa and the dance we do came from Africa. The songs we sing in America came from the plantation … in Africa, they didn't sing the same songs, but we kept that tradition and we added our new found religion, which is the Christian religion."

In 2019, BBC World Service recorded Gullah Geechee people performing the ring shout in Sierre Leone. Black shouters performed the dance in West Africa to return the tradition back to its spiritual origin.[44]

In 2024, to learn about their culture, which stems from the African traditions of enslaved people on the lower Atlantic coast, Gullah Geechee youth connected with ring shout elders. The Winnsboro Easter Rock Ensemble (the Rockers), accompanied by youth participants from Winnsboro, Louisiana, traveled to Darien, Georgia, to perform alongside the Gullah Geechee ring shouters. Future generations experienced the ring shout through this cultural exchange. The Mcintosh County ring shouters continue to teach African Americans the history and development of the ring shout at special events.[45]

[…]

Regional variations

Many scholars point to an African origin of the ring shout, suggesting that enslaved people developed the dance from their traditional African spiritual practices. According to Hazzard-Donald, "Like dance in West Africa, the African American Ring Shout was seen as a sacred enactment performed in a sacred context."[23] Because the earliest accounts of the African American ring shout "do not locate the sacred circle in a Christian context," Hazzard-Donald maintained that it was from the "African sacred circle" that the ring shout was developed by African Americans. She also stated that this counter-clockwise, sacred circle dance "appears to have been done universally among African American bondsmen, and later among freedmen."[23] The ring shout then evolved into various forms throughout the generations.[50]

Mardi Gras Indians performed the ring shout at Congo Square.

According to the Louisiana Slave Database, which details the ethnicities and African origins of enslaved people who lived in Louisiana between 1719 and 1820, 35.4 percent of them belonged to the Bakongo and Ambundu ethnic groups from West-Central Africa, 10.9 percent were Mandinka, 7.4 percent were Mina from the Costa da Mina, 7.1 were Wolof from Senegambia, and 5.5 were Bambara people.[51] Despite their cultural differences, they gathered in Congo Square on Sundays for worship, with the ring shout "[bringing] them together, transcending cultural barriers and hastening the creation of a pan-African cultural mix with numerous points of intersection."[52]

Sharing the space of the Square, the "dusky dancers" grouped themselves by ethnicity and formed their own circles to perform the ring shout. "Each circle featured an 'orchestra' of drums, jawbones, and “a peculiar kind of banjo."[52] Louisiana Voodoo rituals were integrated into the ring shout.[53] Practitioners of Hoodoo practice the ring shout to commune with ancestral spirits.[54][55] Ring shouts were sometimes held in honor of the dead at jazz funerals by the Mardi Gras Indians.[56] Today, ring shouts in New Orleans are accompanied with musical bands which later influenced the second line parades.[57][58][59]

During slavery and after emancipation, other African American communities practiced the ring shout during funerals, a tradition that is similar to West African burial rituals in Sierra Leone.[60][61] Harriet Tubman attended a Black funeral in the South Carolina Lowcountry and they performed the ring shout which Tubman called a "spiritual shuffel."[62] In the Sea Islands, Gullah Geechee people create music during the ring shout using wooden sticks and clapping their hands singing Christian spirituals.[63] They also formed a circle and marched around a grave singing and shaking hands.

[…]

The Great Migration of Black people from the Lowcountry to New York and Chicago influenced culture in Northern African-African communities. Jazz piano and drumming became part of 1950s Harlem ring shouts, substituting the broomsticks that men used to rhythmically beat wooden floors.[65] Authors Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama say this about the different styles:[50]

“As the dance survived throughout three generations of enslavement, it took on different forms. There were also several rules established in an effort to keep the ring shout a part of African American culture. The ring shout could be danced in two forms— one form was performed in Georgia and South Carolina and the other in North Carolina and Virginia. The latter type was performed as a solo dance with onlookers doing verbal call-and-response, whereas the first form was performed as a group dance. Very early on the rules were established for the dance. One of the more important rules was the rule against the dancers’ crossing their legs or feet.”...

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ONLINE SOURCE  #2
From https://www.goldenislesmagazine.com/features/the-art-of-the-shout/article_62168c4c-41ff-11ee-ac8a-e70e2be41304.html The Art of the shout

Words by Larry Hobbs | Photos by Derrick Davis and Pricilla Boudreau Aug 24, 2023
"Centuries of enslavement and unspeakable deprivation in a foreign world an ocean away from their homeland could not extinguish the enduring spirit of the African soul.

Through it all, that indomitable essence survived, thrived, and flourished. It went on to imbue profound and indelible influences on the American experience, particularly in music.

Those contributions are present in all musical genres, from the joyous syncopation of jazz, the irresistible rhythm of Delta blues, or the stirring tempo of the bluegrass banjo (an African instrument.) But the very essence of that musical legacy may have been lost to posterity if not for a resolute group from a wooded pocket of rural McIntosh County.

Because of the tightknit Gullah Geechee community of Briar Patch, the ring shout still bears testament to humanity’s unquenchable yearning for freedom. A stick beats a rhythm that is accompanied by foot stomping and handclapping, creating a mesmerizing beat. Dressed in his Sunday best overalls and a straw hat, a songster belts out baritone verses of redemption and deliverance.

Ladies donning heirloom dresses and headscarves respond melodically, shuffling in a counterclockwise movement while pantomiming the song’s narrative.

The origin of this intricate melding of song, rhythm, percussion, and choreography took flight under bondage during enslavement in the Antebellum South. But its roots are firmly planted in Africa.

That McIntosh County group alone nurtured this jubilant practice into the 20th century and up to present times — from the famed singer Bessie Jones of the Sea Island Singers to the contemporary McIntosh County Shouters.

[...]

The McIntosh County Shouters have performed on stage from Washington, D.C., to Boulder, Colo., and were recently featured in the Civil War-era independent film, Freedom’s Path. The Gullah Geechee Ring Shouters splintered off from the original group; it also has performed to national acclaim on stage and in film.

Participants dedicate themselves to maintaining the spiritual elements that crossed the Atlantic in the hearts of their forebears.

“I can definitely say that the ring shout has always stirred something special in me,” says Brenton Jordan, 36, a stick man for the McIntosh County Shouters.

The contemporary incarnation of the ring shout serves as a direct link to long-established cultural traditions, says Griffin Lotson of the Gullah Geechee Ring Shouters.  

“We keep it raw, trying to give it to you like you were on the plantation back in the day,” Lotson says. “We stand on the shoulders of the generation that we learned from. They stood on the generation before that, and the generation before that.”

This stretch of Coastal Georgia is steeped in Gullah Geechee culture, defining a proud people who established self-sustaining communities along coastal Georgia following emancipation.

The ring shout is integral to that heritage.

Its incorporation of these most basic elements was born of necessity during enslavement. But it would be a disservice to describe the overall result as simple. The rhythm produced is complex and multifaceted, while the songster’s call and the shouters’ response teems with underlying meanings.

Accompanied by the songster, the stick man and a clapper, the shouters vigorously shuffle in a counterclockwise movement that is not quite a dance. They are careful not cross their feet or lift them, as their adopted Christianity forbade it. Deep body bends, swaying arms and movements by these ladies portray story lines such as that of an eagle’s liberating wings in “Move, Daniel.”

“You can’t just say, ‘We’re putting together a group, and we have a shout,’” explains Brenton, who received the United States Artists’ 2023 Beresford Award. “No, you don’t. If you’re not allowing yourself to rise, crack and fall, if your feet are not doing what the stick says to do, then you’re not doing it.”

Brenton learned the tradition at his grandmother’s knee in the Briar Patch community. In addition to mastering the complex beats of the stick man, Brenton’s considerable singing chops are occasionally featured on songs like “Blow, Gabriel.”

“If you grew up in Briar Patch, you were exposed to it at an early age,” says Brenton, who also pursues African dance. “There was always a spiritual pull to it. My grandmother did it and my great-grandmother did it. For me being a lover of music and a lover of African dance culture, it was as though I were unconsciously drawn to it.”

Polytheistic West Africa tribal practices, as well as north African Islamic practices, infused with Christian expression for the enslaved. The term “shout” may refer to the “Afro-Arabic term “saut,” sometimes pronounced “shout,” meaning a fervent dance around the Kabaa in Mecca,” Rosenbaum writes.

West African spiritual influences are evident in the shouters’ counterclockwise movements. These represented the sun’s movements in the African sky, following cycles of birth, life, death, and afterlife.

[...]

Lydia Parish of St. Simons Island promoted the shout and its attendant African musical traditions in the early 20th Century. The daughter of abolitionists with a love of African American music, she persuaded practitioners Bessie Jones and Joe Armstrong to form the Sea Island Singers. With help from black linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner and folklorist Alan Lomax, their music reached national audiences at Carnegie Hall and in music festivals from Newport to the Smithsonian. 

Writes historian Melissa Cooper: “Lydia Parrish began a relentless quest to prove that the slave songs she collected and the ring shout performances she observed were definitive evidence of African survivals in America.”

Meanwhile, the good folks of Briar Patch continued without fanfare to answer the inner calling of the ring shout. This most commonly occurred at the Bolden Home Lodge or after church services at the Mount Cavalry Baptist Church. A longstanding tradition there included marathon New Year’s Eve sessions during Watch Night. This longstanding African American tradition celebrates the enactment of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 during the Civil War.

Around 1980, former Sea Island Singers Frankie and Doug Quimby were pleasantly surprised to learn of these ring shout traditionalists in McIntosh County.

Writes Rosenbaum: “With the help of folklorists Fred Fussell and George Mitchell, the Quimbys located the shouters of Bolden (Briar Patch), who were persuaded to form a group that would present the traditional practice … all the elements of this presumed extinct tradition were presented conscientiously, much as the elements had been reported by 19th century observers.”

The subsequent Smithsonian Folkways recording, The McIntosh County Shouters: Slave Songs from The Coast of Georgia, put the ring shout on the national map. It led to the aforementioned performances on stage and screen for the McIntosh County Shouters, and the formation of the Gullah Geechee Shouters.

[…]

In the present day, professor YaTande Whitney Hunter asserts that "groups that sustain the Ring Shout as 'authentic' to the Gullah-Geechee culture are mostly Christian based in their religious affiliation".[80] According to Johnson, "The continued observance of the ring shout ritual throughout the slave community, especially among those 'converted' to Christianity, demonstrates beyond question the tenacious power and influence of the slaves' African cultural inheritance."...

****
ONLINE SOURCE #3
From https://www.facebook.com/groups/2413757252123955/posts/3527450157421320/

Black History Stories,Admin, August 6, 2026

The Evolution of the Ring Shout Tradition in African American Culture
…”It was New Year's Eve of 1980, in a cinder-block church standing in a field of live oaks off Highway 99, about fifty miles south of Savannah. The visitors had driven down to see a thing the books said no longer existed.

They were told to sit in the back and stay out of the way, and when the preaching finished the benches went back against the walls. A ring formed on the cleared floor, a man laid a stick into the boards where a drum should have been, and the singing started.

What the visitors noticed first was so small they almost did not bother writing it down.

Nobody's feet crossed.

The shuffle went counterclockwise, the foot barely leaving the wood. Not one person in that ring let one foot pass over the other, because that was not a style choice but a rule.

Ask the shouters of Bolden why and they will tell you plain. Crossing your feet would make it dancing, and dancing is a sin.

That is the reason they give, and it is a true one. Now hear how the rule got taught.

The old sisters who ran that ring were daughters of London and Amy Jenkins, born into slavery and freed in their own lifetimes. If a child came into the circle and did it wrong, one of those women would put out a hand and pop him straight out of it.

You could stand at the wall and watch until you learned. You could not come back in until your feet were right.

Hold that picture for a second. A grandmother in a country church, born to people who had been somebody's property, physically removing a child from a circle for letting one foot cross the other.

She was not being fussy about a dance step. She was teaching him how to carry a thing that people had once been whipped for keeping.

The counterclockwise turn, the one voice calling and the many coming in underneath it, the way the whole body keeps the time, all of it came across the water. The ring itself is African.

Lawrence McKiver, who led that ring for most of a century, said it about as plainly as it can be said. He said every bit of it is an African act.

The rule about the feet is not African. That one came from white missionaries who preached that dancing was sin, and it got welded onto the old thing by people running a very careful piece of arithmetic.

They surrendered the single motion that would have gotten the whole practice called dancing. Everything else they kept.

[…]

McKiver used to tell about what that did to the houses. A house in that country sat up on rocks, and when a room full of people got the shout going properly, the building would work itself off its piers.

The next morning the neighbors came back, lifted the house, and set it down on the sills again. Then that night they did it a second time.

Lawrence McKiver was born in Bolden in April of 1915. His mother was Charlotte Evans, daughter of London and Amy Jenkins.

Two pairs of hands stood between him and people who had learned those songs while it was still against the law.

Of the old people who taught him, he said they were "doing something to keep their mind off the past tense." He said it was their happiness.

When folklorists finally found Bolden in 1980, McKiver was the one who stood up to lead. The group took a name, the McIntosh County Shouters, and carried the thing to Wolf Trap, then to Lincoln Center.

In 1993 the National Endowment for the Arts gave them a National Heritage Fellowship. He was still leading the ring in his mid-eighties.

He died on March 25, 2013, at ninety-seven, in a nursing home on St. Simons Island. A cousin named Carletha Sullivan confirmed it to the papers.

The shouters of Bolden live within walking distance of one another, on land they own. It is the same ground their great-grandparents were owned on.

Nobody there is in danger now. No one is going to be whipped over the shape a foot makes on a floor.

They still do not cross them.

Freddie Palmer took the lead songster's place after McKiver went. The songs live now in a small number of throats, and that number has never once gone up on its own.

It took a legislature, a militia, and a hundred and twenty-five years of law to take the drum away. Finishing the job would take nothing at all now, just one Watch Night that comes and goes with nobody in the room.

Every Watch Night so far, the benches have gone back against the wall in that cinder-block church and somebody has stepped onto the floor without crossing their feet. No law requires that, and nothing guarantees the next one.”

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ONLINE SOURCE #4

[This is the complete reprint of this article.]

From https://www.independent.com/2011/05/24/santa-barbara-ring-shout-gears-up-d-c/ "Santa Barbara Ring Shout Gears Up for D.C. "

Historically Rich Group Gets Invited to Perform at Smithsonian

By L.D. Porter, Tue May 24, 2011
"Sometimes passion and responsibility go hand in hand. That’s certainly true for Frances Moore, the leader of the Santa Barbara Ring Shout Project, which is dedicated to preserving the oldest African-American performance tradition in North America, the ring shout.

Often considered a form of dance, ring shout was once a religious ritual, first practiced by slaves in the Southern states. Written observations of ring shout first appeared in the mid-19th century, but by the early 20th century, the tradition was assumed to have died out. Fortunately, it came to light that slave descendants living in the coastal region of Georgia and South Carolina (known as the Gullah people) had maintained this important cultural practice. Currently, several well-known ring shout groups actively perform in the area.

The term “shout” refers to the movement of ring shout participants, who take short shuffling steps in a counterclockwise direction as a “sticker” or “stick man” beats the rhythm with a wooden stick. Singers stand to the side of the circle, clapping and singing in a call-and-response pattern. (The clapping and beating of time with the stick apparently once stood in for drums, which were often banned by slave owners fearful of uprisings.) Historians have traced the ring shout’s likely origin to West Africa, where burial ceremonies were often performed in ring formation, with mourners moving in a counterclockwise direction around the grave.

For Moore, participating in ring shouts harkens back to her childhood in Forest Home, Alabama, where the call-and-response songs she heard in church fascinated her. “I just remember holding still, observing every word, watching every movement of their bodies,” she recalled recently. “I did not know back then that they were doing a part of ring shout; it didn’t have a name. I just saw the people in my church clapping and stomping and singing in a call-and-response way.”

The Santa Barbara Ring Shout Project was founded by Moore and Mark Ravitz in 2007. The group is multicultural and currently has eight active members (the youngest of whom is only 4 years old). Singing songs composed by Moore, the group has performed in Santa Barbara at the Solstice Parade, the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration, and the Santa Barbara Dance Alliance’s annual festival. It is the only group of its kind on the West Coast. In recognition of this fact, the Santa Barbara Ring Shout Project has been invited to participate in a giant ring shout at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum this summer. The event is expected to be the largest ring shout ever assembled. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Moore noted, adding that she hopes First Lady Michelle Obama, who has Gullah ties, will be in attendance. (The group will perform this Friday at Trinity Episcopal Church to help raise funds for the trip.)

Moore is deeply committed to carrying on the ring shout tradition and maintaining the continued existence of the Santa Barbara Ring Shout Project. She points out that “the purpose is to educate, to come together as a community. I want us to continue to educate, celebrate, and pass it along to the next generation. Ring shout transcends age, race, and gender, and the energy in the circle transcends worldly things.”
-snip-
Santa Barbara is a city in the state of California (USA).

Moore’s first name isn’t given in this article.

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ONLINE SOURCE #5

[This is a complete article reprint about "Easter Rock", a variant form of the United States ring shout.]

From https://64parishes.org/entry/winnsboro-easter-rock "Winnsboro Easter Rock"

Held on the Saturday before Easter Sunday, this women-led vigil includes counterclockwise percussive foot movement and call-and-response singing.

by Susan Roach [No publishing date is given for this article. However, it features a photograph of the 2019 Easter Rock observation. This article was retrieved on September 12, 2026]

"Easter Rock, a rare tradition apparently originating in pre–Civil War years in northeast Louisiana plantation Black Baptist churches, continues today in Winnsboro. Held on the Saturday before Easter Sunday, this women-led Easter Eve vigil ritual has roots in both West African traditions and Christian beliefs. Based on the tradition’s characteristics, which include counterclockwise rhythmic percussive foot movement accompanied by call-and-response singing, scholars Joyce Jackson and Janet Sturman suggest that Easter Rock grew out of African American religious ring shout and rock traditions. Thanks to practitioner Hattie Addison Burkhalter, who received a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship for her preservation efforts, the Winnsboro Easter Rock in Franklin Parish is the only group known to continue to practice the tradition.

History of Easter Rock in Winnsboro

Scholar H. F. Gregory writes that Easter Rock once ranged down the Mississippi floodplain in the northeast Louisiana Delta from East Carroll Parish to Concordia Parish. At the 1993 Delta Folklife Field School, Gregory provided history on the disappearing tradition, prompting participant Anne Staten to search for it. Through her cousin, R. B. Kelly, Staten found it and arranged for researchers to attend the service led by Hattie Addison Burkhalter at the Original True Light Baptist Church in Winnsboro. Burkhalter had learned the tradition from her mother, Ellen Addison, who passed it along when her declining health prohibited her participation. Burkhalter stepped up with support from her extended family and friends, especially her daughter, Laketa “PK” Addison, and her late husband, Booker T. Burkhalter, who died in 2018 at age 104.

Since Easter Rock in Winnsboro is not affiliated with a particular church, practitioners must seek available venues with wooden floors to amplify their footsteps for their rock. By 2010 the Original True Light Baptist Church building had another denomination in it and needed significant repairs, so Burkhalter secured alternative locations, including the American Legion Hall, a community center, a new church, and the Princess Theater. With repairs completed on the renamed Original True Light Church of God in Christ in 2015, Easter Rock returned and continued there despite the losses of Burkhalter’s mother and husband, until COVID-19 restrictions on large gatherings prohibited the ritual in 2020 and 2021. During these years the church building further deteriorated, so the 2022 and 2023 rocks were held in different modern church buildings on concrete slabs with wood platforms for the pulpit area so that the rockers’ percussive footsteps had some amplification.

The Ritual Pattern

The ritual pattern of the Winnsboro Easter Rock remains similar to rocks documented in Concordia Parish in the 1940s, except the service now runs 7–10 p.m. instead of all night. Whenever possible, church pews are reoriented. In older plantation churches, pews are not attached to wood floors, so they can be turned toward the center aisle, where a long table is covered with a white cloth—the rock’s focal point—representing the sepulcher of Christ. The service opens with a devotional, consisting of an a cappella congregational hymn—often a call-and-response Dr. Watts song—followed by a scripture reading, an inspired prayer, and congregational hymns. A mistress of ceremonies presides over the program and provides spirit-filled messages and support for music performers, including a variety of vocal solos and groups, usually unaccompanied. The heartfelt musical performances heighten the emotions in preparation for the symbol-laden Easter Rock.

Reading the paper program, the mistress of ceremonies announces that the “rockers are in charge.” As a member of the rock sings the opening lines of another Dr. Watts hymn, lights are dimmed, and women dressed in white gather at the door. The women echo biblical stories of the wise and foolish virgins and the women who visited Christ’s tomb. In earlier days the women wore white Sunday attire; today the women wear white skirts, shirts, and tennis shoes. Sometimes young men in white shirts and black slacks may participate in the rock ritual itself; they might also sing solos in the song service or offer prayers. The rockers’ white attire sets them apart and symbolizes purity, innocence, and death.

The women, bearing lighted oil lamps, march slowly into the dimly lit sanctuary and encircle the table, singing “When the Saints Go Marching In” at a funereal tempo. The song reflects their joining Christ in his death as they approach the sepulcher: “Oh Lord, I want to be in that number when the saints go marching in.” According to Burkhalter and Addison, the lamps represent the twelve tribes of Israel. After the first circle around the table, each woman is given one of twelve cakes, representing the twelve disciples, along with containers of red punch to place on the table. Burkhalter says cake and punch symbolize the body and blood of Christ. Then the leader takes the banner—a four-foot pole topped with a flat disk covered with white material and multi-colored crepe paper streamers. Echoing banners carried in West African funeral processions, the banner symbolizes Christ’s cross or Moses’s staff.

The rockers circle the table counterclockwise and move into a call-and-response spiritual, “O, David,” telling the story of David’s overcoming Goliath with a rock. The lines of the song are called out by a caller, often Emma Hagan, and the rockers respond with the refrain, “O, David.”

The rockers’ shuffle steps echo the rhythms of African drums on the wood floor while they sing “The Lord’s Prayer” until exhausted. The singing procession is joyous because, as Burkhalter says, participants celebrate Christ’s resurrection by “rockin’ to a risen savior.” Addison credits the “rock” practice to the biblical prophet: “Elijah rocked to the coming of the Lord.” The side-to-side movement of the rockers and the banner is called “rocking.” Addison insists rocking is not dancing: “Move your foot from one side to another, but you ain’t supposed to cross your legs. . . . They say you’re dancing when you cross your legs.”

While the rockers rest, more singers perform, and an offering is taken. Then the rockers resume, and finally members of the congregation may join them. The rock always closes with the rockers chanting, “I think I’ll go on home back to my Father’s house” as they exit. The service closes with remarks and prayer, followed by rockers serving the symbolic cakes and punch to the congregation in an exultant reunion atmosphere."

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