The Women. They Were Plotting Too: Declaring Our Independence in the Spirit of Sankofa

This chapter explores the key concepts and processes that underpin Barby Asante’s ongoing performance work, Declaration of Independence. This iterative performance work is grounded in decolonial Black feminist thinking and practices that draw on Asante’s interest in reconsidering the Akan Adinkra principle of Sankofa not just as a way to reflect on and address the past, but also a practice of care that calls on that which came before, to speculate on otherwise possibilities for the future. Asante examines Declaration of Independence as an artwork, a performative forum, a study group, a circle, and a community resource that brings together groups of black and womxn of color to reflect on how the political affects the personal, when considering the continuing impact of historic legacies of slavery and colonialism. Central to this work is re-calling Ama Ata Aidoo’s poem, “As Always, a Painful Declaration of Independence” from her 1992 collection An Angry Letter in January and Other Poems as a core text in the work’s process of undoing. The poem is the call to which contributors to Asante’s project respond, developing an artwork that centers their experiences not just as performers but as creators of their own resources, communities, stories, and agendas.