Middle Passage Ancestral Remembrance Ceremony and Marker Installation

 Ancestral Remembrance Ceremony at Castillo de San Marcos, north lawn, noon to honor Africans who died in the transatlantic voyage known as the Middle Passage and the survivors who built the nation. The ceremony will include a Native American blessing, historical statement on St. Augustine as the first permanent European/African/Native American settlement in the U.S., prayers for ancestors by diverse faith representatives, and a traditional libation by spiritual advisor Malidoma Some. Those in attendance will be encouraged to participate in the libation so that the unknown can be remembered. Historic Marker Unveiling at Mission Nombre de Dios at 3:00 pm which tells the story of Africans, free and enslaved, and their descendants. It is a narrative of Black Christianity, freedom, enslavement, culture, talents, skills, civil rights, conflict, and resistance beginning in 1565 in St. Augustine. As the city observes its 450th anniversary, it is important that the people upon whose labor and skills the New World's development depended are acknowledged and formally included in the city, state and nation's story.