By Mama A. Touray
The Kunta Kinteh Foundation, on Wednesday, 14th June 2023 at Westfield held a press briefing to announce its upcoming 3rd edition of the Kunta Kinteh Festival.
The festival will be held from 2nd to 12th July 2023, within the Greater Banjul Area and Juffureh community in the North Bank Region.
At the press briefing, the 9th generation descendant of Kunta Kinteh, Lamin Ceesay said “The Gambia government and the National Assembly should help and consider the day as a public holiday. Kunta Kinteh was a hero who was captured in this country, struggled, and suffered a lot. He was a true son of our country. If this is in Senegal or other parts of the world they will definitely make it a national holiday as Kunta Kinteh was an important personality in the history of this county.”
Ceesay added that it is part of the Kunta Kinteh Foundation’s reason for the establishment to plead with the Gambia Government to make this day a national holiday. Stating that Kunta Kinteh was on July 5th, 1757 transported out of this country for slavery.
He stressed that there are holidays that the country observes and that those days he said are not more important than Kunta Kinteh Day.
“We are the 9th generation of Kunta Kinteh, our grandmother late Binta Kinteh was the seventh generation, now our mum is the one on the throne and Mariama Fofana is the eighth, and the grandchildren, the 9th.
Meanwhile, the Secretary General of Kunta Kinteh Foundation said the foundation is a nonprofit organization, and they will make sure sure that the festival is held as a means of attracting descendants of Africans, who are interested in their own identity as African American history.
“The third edition of the Kunta Kinteh day commemoration is a ten-day cultural experience which aims to showcase the rich and cultural diversity of the Gambia through cultural exhibitions, and expositions. And also the diaspora investment opportunities that some of the diaspora people are searching for.”
The event is expected to be accompanied by wrestling, and different cultural displays. The event will commence from 2nd July to 12th July 2023 but July 5th will be the day for the commemoration of Kunta Kinteh day, which will be accompanied by a March pass from traffic lights to Westfield.
