LESSONS FROM THE BLACK STAR AND NORTH STAR.

By Nii B. Andrews.

Today the Black Star features prominently in our national symbolism; for people of African descent it embodies an ideal: the Lodestar of African Freedom.

Whether the trajectory of our national life for several decades has been in consonance with the thrust of its idealism is a question that should not be difficult to answer by those who seek after truth. 

Suffice it to say that it can certainly not be compatible with perennial utterly humiliating visits to the IMF in order to rescue a totally busted economy.

But there is yet another star that has been well known to Africans and others for millenia. 

It is the North Star aka Polaris. 

This star is easily located by a visible asterism the Big Dipper. As the name implies, it represents a drinking gourd or dipping ladle.

From the gourd’s outline, the North Star could be found by extending a straight line five times the distance from the outermost star of the bowl.

What is interesting is that a knowledgeable gaze into the night sky can unleash a tapestry of narratives that inform and link us with the past.

Such was the powerful reference that Aaron Douglas utilized when in 1936 he painted INTO BONDAGE, a stark depiction of the forced removal of Africans to America. 

Douglas rendered the scene in a stylized manner that incorporates elements of Cubism and African motifs. 

There are shackled figures with their heads hung low in procession toward ships on the horizon.

A diagonal line of shackled figures recedes into space.

Then there is an overlay of subtle concentric circles that appear to emanate from the setting sun – an allusion to impending doom, darkness or even death.

The verdant foliage evokes an Eden from which poor souls have been cast out as they commence their long march to Armageddon – a horrific Middle Passage followed by four hundred years of unimaginable brutality, with effects which are still strongly felt today.

But Douglas is able to introduce a scintilla of hope into the tragic scene.

One of the captives fixes his upward gaze at a star from which a single ray issues —perhaps the same one that guided so many enslaved people to freedom; the North Star.

The subtle gradations of the color tones in the painting hint at late harmattan and early rainy season for this is the time when the North Star is most easily visible.

It is also the time when food stores are at their lowest and cerebrospinal meningitis stalks the Savannah regions.

Are we today being marched to new ships – the IMF? Is there any complicity by our own people?

Douglas alluded to verifiable historical facts and conflated them in order to teach important lessons on indigenous knowledge, skill, fortitude, perseverance and hope.

Many historical figures like Harriet Tubman, used the celestial gourd, or dipper, to guide them on their journey north to freedom.

The Big Dipper and North Star were referenced in many slave narratives and songs. 

Follow the Drinking Gourd was a popular African American folksong composed by Richie Havens in 1928 and based on these anecdotes that memorialized the significance of these stars.

Can we not use the Black Star and the North Star to begin improving our lot in this vale of tears?