We congratulate and salute the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute as it celebrates 50 years of extraordinary service to our community, to New York City, and to people of African descent throughout the world.
For half a century, this remarkable institution has demonstrated what culture truly means within the life of a people.
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The late Jamaican scholar, cultural icon and Caribbean intellectual Professor Rex Nettleford reminded us:
“Culture is not merely a product to be consumed, but a process by which a people discover and affirm themselves.”
Few statements better describe the mission and the work of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute.
For 50 years, CCCADI has understood that culture is not simply entertainment. It is not merely something to be displayed on a stage, hung on a wall, performed before an audience, or packaged for consumption. Culture is memory. Culture is identity. Culture is resistance. Culture is the means by which a people understand who they are, where they have come from, and what they may yet become.
That understanding has been at the heart of the Center from its beginning.
Founded in 1976 by the visionary Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, the institution was born from within the community to provide a critical outlet for the culture, history, creativity, scholarship and spiritual traditions of African-descended people. But it became much more than an outlet. It became a preserver of memory, a builder of consciousness, an educator of generations, and a powerful advocate for the right of a people to define and represent themselves.
Through exhibitions, performances, conferences, lectures, educational programs, international exchanges and community activism, the Center has created space for voices and traditions too often ignored, misunderstood, marginalized or deliberately excluded from mainstream institutions.
That work has always been essential.
For if we do not preserve our culture, others will determine what is preserved.
If we do not interpret our history, others will interpret it for us.
And when others tell our story without our knowledge, our experience or our understanding, too often that story is distorted, diminished, misrepresented or erased.
That is why institutions such as the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute are not cultural luxuries. They are necessities.
They are guardians of memory.
They are houses of affirmation.
They are bridges between generations.
They remind young people that they did not begin with themselves. They are heirs to civilizations, traditions, struggles, creativity and achievements that reach across centuries and continents.
The story of CCCADI is also the story of visionary leadership.
Dr. Marta Moreno Vega understood, 50 years ago, that African-descended people throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, the United States and the wider African Diaspora shared deep cultural connections that needed to be explored, celebrated and strengthened. She saw the possibilities of building an institution that could bring artists, scholars, cultural practitioners, spiritual leaders, educators, activists and communities together.
She had bold ideas and the determination to turn those ideas into an enduring institution.
The publishers of Carib News, Faye and Karl Rodney, were honored and delighted to have been part of the founding board and to witness that vision taking shape even before Carib News itself was founded. We saw firsthand the determination, imagination and courage required to build an institution committed to our culture and our people.
Professor Rex Nettleford was also a frequent and valued participant in many of the cultural conversations and programs developed and presented by the Center. His presence represented the very best of the Caribbean intellectual and cultural tradition—the insistence that dance, music, language, scholarship, history and artistic expression were all part of the serious work of building a people.
The relationship between Nettleford and the Center reflected a larger understanding: that culture must not be separated from development, education, identity or liberation.
A people who do not understand themselves are vulnerable to being defined by others.
A people who do not preserve their memory can be persuaded that they have no history.
And a generation that does not know the struggles, sacrifices and achievements of those who came before it is forced to begin again.
CCCADI has worked for 50 years to ensure that we do not have to begin again.
It has collected.
It has documented.
It has presented.
It has taught.
It has challenged.
It has connected generations and communities across the African Diaspora.
And importantly, it has understood that cultural work must also be activist work, because the struggle over culture is also a struggle over power—over who is seen, who is heard, whose traditions are respected, whose history is taught, and whose humanity is fully recognized.
The sustainability of such institutions is itself a major achievement.
Founding an institution requires vision. Sustaining one requires extraordinary commitment. Growing it across generations requires another kind of leadership altogether.
When Melody Capote assumed leadership of the organization as executive director in 2018, she inherited both a proud history and a great responsibility. A dynamic, fearless and committed cultural leader, she has carried the mission forward while strengthening the institution for a new generation and a changing world.
That is critical.
Institutions must never become monuments only to what they have done.
They must remain living instruments of what still needs to be done.
Under Melody Capote’s leadership, the Center has continued its work of cultural preservation, education, advocacy, racial and social justice, while building upon the extraordinary foundation established by Dr. Marta Moreno Vega and those who labored alongside her.
And so, as the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute celebrates its 50th anniversary, we celebrate far more than longevity.
We celebrate 50 years of memory.
50 years of cultural resistance.
50 years of artistic expression.
50 years of education.
50 years of connecting the Caribbean to Africa, Latin America, the United States and the wider African Diaspora.
50 years of telling our own stories.
50 years of insisting that our culture matters because our people matter.
The work is perhaps even more urgent today.
We live at a time when history is again being contested, books are being removed, uncomfortable truths are being challenged, and the experiences of Black and marginalized communities are too often treated as optional parts of the larger human story.
They are not optional.
Our history matters.
Our memory matters.
Our culture matters.
And the institutions that preserve them matter.
Professor Nettleford’s wisdom therefore remains profoundly relevant. Culture is not simply a product to be consumed. It is the process through which a people discover and affirm themselves.
That affirmation is necessary for every generation.
It gives us confidence.
It gives us grounding.
It gives us identity.
It gives us the courage to face the future without surrendering the memory of the past.
We therefore congratulate Dr. Marta Moreno Vega for the vision and courage to establish this extraordinary institution.
We salute Melody Capote for carrying the torch forward with strength, purpose and determination.
We honor the artists, scholars, staff members, board members, supporters, cultural workers, community activists and countless others who, over five decades, have helped sustain this vital institution.
And we congratulate the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute on 50 years of indispensable work.
Carib News pledges its continuing support to this mission, just as we have supported and shared in that vision from its earliest days.
The work of preserving, interpreting and celebrating our culture must continue.
It must continue because culture is central to our understanding of ourselves.
It must continue because our children need to know the shoulders upon which they stand.
It must continue because our stories must never be left solely in the hands of others.
And it must continue because a people who know, preserve and affirm their culture are a people better prepared to determine their own future.
Congratulations, CCCADI, on 50 years.
May the next 50 years be even more powerful, more expansive and more consequential.
The mission remains necessary.
The work remains urgent.
And the culture must endure.
