After experiencing the African Trunk Show at Peace and Riot on the eve of September 11. I couldn’t help but think about a very poignant quote from Sula a book by Toni Morrison. She wrote, “Nobody was minding us, so we minded ourselves.” As young and older black women trickled into Peace and Riot owned by the very fascinating Achuziam Maha. These women, mostly American Black, came in to buy products and accessories made in Ghana and Mali.

You can’t go anywhere, where there is a huge presence of Black American in New York and not see Afros, braids, dashikis and Ankara dresses. With this huge reclaiming of our culture, African fashions have become a very popular. Which in turn lead businesses like Peace and Riot to work with African importers and vendors to bring everything from clothes to furniture to more broadly the African Diaspora and more specifically the neighborhood of BedStuy, Brooklyn. Some may say that this is just a trend but Achuziam Maha, 40, owner of Peace and Riot thinks that it isn’t.

“We want to be cultural ambassadors in our communities and for the next generations of Black American. I think that is what technology is allowing this. Which is making the world smaller and smaller.”

If you know anything about slavery, you may know a part of the social condition of African slaves from the coast of West Africa were to strip them of their languages, traditions and cultural. As Black American, it has been a long road to healing from slavery, which justifiable still affect us in 2016. If you don’t believe me then Google unprofessional hairstyles and see how many of those pictures are of black women wearing their hair in natural hairstyles.

From creating our own culture in American to reclaiming our culture that was ethnically cleansed from us centuries ago. Now in events like the African trunk show, Black Americans come to buy back their culture from Black and African Vendors and business owners. So yes, we were minding ourselves.