Southeast Missouri history project to highlight African American contributions

African Scientific Research Institute has announced a National Register project to examine the lives and stories of African Americans, free and enslaved, in the United States.

According to Jihad Muhammad, chairman of Ancestral Creations, based in St. Louis, a kickoff community announcement for the group's Southeast Missouri Delta Heritage project will be Sept. 3 and 4 in Sikeston, Missouri.

"An historical project is underway to offer insight into the lives and contributions of early Africans in Midwest America," he said in a news release. "Scientists have documented that more than 100 million Africans were taken from the continent of Africa and shuttled throughout the Caribbean Islands between the late 1600s and mid 1800s. Enslaved in other parts of the world, traveling north to the shores of North America. The historic recorded testimonial evidence confirming their birth, services and death with many being buried in their slave masters' lands and, in many cases, forgotten, lost and demolished."

Muhammad said the project will focus on African Americans' contributions in the Bootheel region of Missouri.

"The Southeast Missouri Delta Heritage project will be the first roots-tourist destination site linking Promiseland, Louisiana's genetic marker to the Hayti/Sikeston region. The narrative highlights progenitors' untold testimonies, the lost and forgotten regional history of enslaved African progenitors sacred burial grounds and culturally significant objects," he explained.

ASRI is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to tracing the historical footsteps of African Americans, both free and enslaved, who lived in America during the 17th to 19th centuries in the upper and lower Louisiana territories.