(S1E4) 12 Million Souls: The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project
What does it mean to carry and honor the memory of 12 million souls?
Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Makers Project: Origins in Bahia, Brazil
The Andinkra symbol, Sankofa, adopted by the MPCPMP, meaning “to retrieve.”
Ann Chinn never set out to become the founder of a national remembrance movement. But the seeds of the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project (MPCPMP) were planted long before the organization had a name, a mission statement, or even a website.
“It started about 35 years ago, maybe even longer,” Ann Chinn recalls. A friend of hers had been close to Toni Morrison, who once admitted the spirits of Africans haunted her, lost in the Middle Passage. Morrison didn’t know how to honor them—or what descendants like herself were supposed to do with such a heavy inheritance. That unresolved weight lingered in the air for Chinn, too. “That was sort of step one,” she says now.
The second step took place in Bahia, Brazil, where Chinn traveled in search of ancestral connections. Bahia, she felt, resonated with the kind of tangible link to Africa that she’d only experienced in New Orleans. While there, she visited a Candomblé house to receive a spiritual reading from a Baba. That’s when something strange happened.
Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project Founder
Ann Chinn
“I entered the room to get the reading and sat across the desk from the Baba. He kept telling me to move away from him,” she explains. Chinn didn’t speak Portuguese, so everything was filtered through a translator. By the time she asked what was going on, she had been pushed halfway across the room. The Baba’s explanation was unexpected: “He is trying to assure all these spirits that you have come into this room with that he means you no harm.”
She was stunned. “What spirits?” she asked. She had ancestors, sure—everyone did. But the Baba insisted this was different. People entered that sacred space with their family spirits all the time, he said, but only once before had someone entered with “this group of ancestors.”
She pushed ahead with the reading. Curious about her Orisha, she asked the Baba who guided her. His answer: Shango.
“Shango?” she remembers reacting. “The hatchet man? The fire guy? A man?” She had trouble accepting the idea of a male Orisha as her primary guide. But the Baba insisted: “Shango adores you… He’s on your head. He’s very protective of you.”
Candomblé House
Interior of the Casa Branca of Ilé Axé Iya Nassô Oká Candomblé house in Salvador, Bahia, Brazia
She asked if she had a female Orisha as well. The Baba named Yansã—essentially, the feminine counterpart of Shango, who guards the cemetery. “I’m not impressed really by either one of these,” she confessed at the time, half-joking, half-serious. Still, she listened.
As she prepared to leave, something shifted in the room. “Suddenly the temperature in the room increased by at least 15 to 20 degrees,” she recalls. Everyone present—the Baba, the translator, and Chinn herself—began sweating heavily.
Still absorbing what had just happened, Chinn was escorted out. The translator took her by the arm “like I’m a little old lady,” and led her back to her husband, Charlie, and their daughter, who were waiting elsewhere in the house. The translator leaned in and said something quietly but firmly to Charlie: “She has important work to do. Take care of her.”
Back with her family, Chinn began to process what had just happened. Charlie listened carefully. Then he looked at her and said, “I think you better start working on that Middle Passage project.” That moment—that gentle nudge—was the point of no return.
“Twelve million souls,” Chinn remembers thinking. “That was in 2001.”
But it would take eight more years before that work would take real shape.
First Steps and Initial Ceremonies: Baltimore, Maryland, 2012
Once the idea of the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project had taken root, Ann Chinn knew she had to begin somewhere close to home. “And I had just decided that we were going to start in Baltimore.” Her roots ran deep there. Though raised in Washington, D.C., her father had taught at Morgan State College, and much of her family still lived in Baltimore. It felt right. Moreover, it felt necessary. “I could not go to any other place and ask them to acknowledge Middle Passage history… if I had never done one myself.”
So she moved into the basement apartment of one of her nieces and spent the entire summer of 2012 organizing the first ancestral remembrance ceremony. She reached out to the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park, and local media outlets—anyone who might listen.
It would be a dawn and dusk ceremony. They consulted with the Baltimore American Indian Center and reached out to multiple religious communities—Christian, Muslim, and Jewish—intentionally shaping it as a community event. “Whether it's directly connected to you or not, you are connected to this place,” Chinn explains. “And this is what happened here.”
“Remember Me” became the unofficial anthem of the project. Later, Reagon granted the team permission to use two songs for ceremonies: “Remember Me” and “The First Time I Saw Big Water.”
Chinn reached out to Bernice Johnson Reagon and asked her to sing “Remember Me.” Reagon agreed, but she required specific equipment to perform. But Chinn had no budget. “We borrowed chairs from the Douglas Myers. We took fake plants out of a school. It was literally just… talking at radio programs, asking people to help.”
And somehow, it all came together.
Despite the earlier back-and-forth about equipment, Bernice Reagon arrived that morning with her granddaughter. The “stage” was just a boombox. Chinn had called her the night before to say they couldn’t meet the technical requirements. “I said, we’d like you to come, whether you participate or not… And she said, ‘Well, I’ll come.’”
The program unfolded—elders gave blessings, a Native American representative offered permission to hold the ceremony, and Chinn stood at the boombox with a tiny microphone. “About 200 people were there. This was all word of mouth and the radio.”
When she wrapped her brief remarks, she stepped down. Bernice tugged on the back of her dress. “Give me the mic,” she said. Chinn unpinned it and passed it to her.
And Bernice sang.
“Between the dawn and dusk ceremonies, these white guys showed up and said, ‘You’re doing this on a boombox?’ And we said, ‘Yeah.’ They said, ‘We got the equipment.’” Chinn couldn’t believe it. She rushed to tell Bernice. “Everything you want, we’ve got,” she told her.
Reagon asked how. Chinn’s answer was simple: “Ancestors.”
“That’s been my response across the board for the last 14 years,” she says. “When we get to a place where there’s a blockage, something breaks through. That is the spiritual force—because we are healing a broken circle. And the ancestors support us.”
That day in Baltimore became a proof of concept. They now had a track record—a template, a story to tell. “Then the rest is history,” Chinn says. “Our next place was, in fact, Yorktown and Jamestown.”
Spiritual Dimensions of Remembrance
For Ann Chinn, remembrance is never just symbolic—it is spiritual, intimate, and sometimes misunderstood. From the beginning, the ceremonies created through the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project have carried a deep spiritual weight, one that she insists must be honored across traditions.
“In many instances, when we say libation and we talk about the inclusion of that particular tradition in the ceremony,” she explains, “sometimes folks are skeptical. It's unfamiliar to many.”
St. Augustine Middle Passage Marker, installed 2015
That unfamiliarity came to a head during the planning of a ceremony in St. Augustine, Florida. The bishop, who had granted permission to install a marker on Catholic land near a towering cross, asked to speak with her directly. “He was Cuban,” Chinn recalls. “He told me, ‘I’m uncomfortable. Number one, that you are inviting an array of religious practices to be part of the ceremony on Catholic land. And this libation,’ he said, ‘Santeria?’”
Chinn replied: “No. This is not Candomblé Santeria. This is a tradition that is practiced by many ethnic groups around the world. And it is a calling to ancestors to join and that we view ancestors as guardians and saints.”
She elaborated: “That's the best way I can explain who ancestors are for us. It is not practicing. Libation is not part of it. Practicing of a religion. It is a cultural practice which is different.”
In the end, they found a solution—two separate ceremonies. The libation and religious blessings were held on National Park Service land, adjacent to the Castillo de San Marcos, protected by the First Amendment. The marker installation remained on Catholic grounds. “And that's what I'm saying,” she reflected, “that in many instances, we work around.”
“And that's the point,” Chinn emphasized. “If this is where you are in your life in the present, you can still represent—and honor the people who created this place that has value to you.”
MPCPMP Founder and Program Director Ann Chinn on ceremonies and healing.
Spirituality, for Chinn, is not window dressing. It is a mode of repair. A quiet offering to those who were never buried, never named, never remembered.
“I really look at these ceremonies as a first step,” she says. “Maybe the trip to the pharmacy, you know, to realize that you've got to address something.”
She remembers vividly the first ceremony in Baltimore and one man in particular. “He had such a reaction to the ceremony. He was so angry about what had happened to our ancestors. And it was at that point that I said, God, I wish we had a counselor as part of a support system when we're doing this. You never know the reaction of people.”
For most, though, the experience is less about shock and more about discovery. “I think that it has been respectful,” Chinn reflects. “For some people who know the history, it's a way of, okay, this is another part of the process. But for other people, it's the first time that they have ever participated in anything directly related, even to their own connection to the history.”
“People hook on to what they hear,” she says. That’s why she’s careful about how the work is framed. “We always say we’re doing this work not for guilt, not for shame, but to make you aware. It’s still, it’s just like Baba said: I’ll give you the information. What you do with it, that’s your responsibility.”
The Importance of Indigenous Representation in Ceremonies
Ann Chinn didn’t always see Indigenous communities as part of the Middle Passage story. When the late historian Vincent Harding first raised the idea, she admits she was taken aback. “I looked at him because I’m going, no, I’m only dealing with Africans. Why are you even raising Native people?”
Boston, MA, Middle Passage Marker, installed 2020
But that initial reaction didn’t last long. It was a simple but profound shift in understanding. If these ceremonies were about honoring the full story of the land and those who suffered upon it, then Indigenous communities couldn’t be left out. “Why would we not include Native Americans?” she asked, frankly.
As the ceremonies spread across the country, Indigenous participation became not only intentional but necessary. “What I have learned in this work is that Native Americans and Africans have always been connected.”
She offered Boston as a powerful example. Preparing for a ceremony at Faneuil Hall, her team initially reached out to regional tribes, but none responded.
Two weeks before the event, panic set in. Vivian Johnson, a local organizer, called in distress: they still had no Native representation. “I went, okay,” Chinn replied calmly. “The ancestors will figure this out.” And they did. Three days later, Vivian called again: “My God, we got a group.”
Chinn arrived in Boston, unsure of what to expect. As the ceremony began, a woman entered with two or three young men and took her place on stage. “I look at her—she looks like a regular Black woman to me,” Chinn recalled. “She’s a Native American, and the name of the tribe is the Massachusett. “I kept saying, where are the Black New England families who can trace their history?”
Then it hit her: “I’ve been looking in the wrong place.”
Many of those first African-descended families had crossed over into Native communities, especially during the colonial era. “That’s why we can’t find them—because if you could get out of the European settlements, all you had to do was figure out what community you could survive with. And very often, it was the Native people. You became part of those communities.”
Building a National Movement
Ann Chinn’s voice softens a bit when she reflects on the long road from the first ceremony in Baltimore to where the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project stands today. “I’ve changed—and I haven’t,” she says quietly, pausing before adding, “I think I’m in a transition period now.” This project, she admits, has consumed her life. “You can ask my family,” she laughs. She’s worn out two cars driving to ceremonies across the country. “I don’t like to fly. I hate the trains. But I have to do in person.”
That insistence on presence isn’t just logistical—it’s deeply spiritual. Ann comes from a family deeply rooted in community work, with teachers, public servants, and advocates among its members. For her, this project wasn’t a new path, but an evolution. “I’ve always loved history. I love art. I had a long career in social services. This combines everything I’ve done.”
Still, the journey has not been without doubt. “My frustration,” she admits, “is when I don’t see people who understand why it’s important. That’s when I wonder—am I not communicating well? How do I convey this better?”
Part of the answer, for her, came in resisting the idea that preservation had to be led by academics. “When we were forming the board, I said, I don’t want any academics. I want community activists. People who relate. Who love history. Who want to tell it from our side.” That grassroots ethic continues to shape the project. Even as new board members come in, Ann Chinn and her co-founder and sister-in-law, Ann Cobb, remind everyone, “You’ve got to stress: this is community-based. This is grassroots. This is not academic. This is not institutional.”
Honoring a Promise
Tybee, GA, Middle Passage Marker, installed 2022
“And we’re not just talking about slavery,” she adds firmly. “We’re talking about the people who endured the Middle Passage. What it meant to be separated permanently. What it means to manage and justify the largest forced migration in human history.”
That commitment to truth-telling—place by place—has remained constant.
MPCPMP Founder and Program Director Ann Chinn on honoring her promise of remembrance.
She tells the story of a trip to Tybee Island, Georgia. Her niece, then working at Savannah State, invited her for a day trip, 28 years ago. “As soon as we crossed the Savannah River, I started feeling sick. By the time we reached the lighthouse on Tybee, I was doubled over.” Her niece had brought her there for a reason. “She said, ‘This is where the Africans were quarantined and unloaded.’” That physical reaction, that gut-deep awareness, wasn’t new. “I’ve had that happen before—in the Virgin Islands, in places touched by the trade.”
That day, as she stood on Tybee’s rocky shore, she made a promise: “I won’t forget you,” she whispered to the ancestors. “I’ll remember you.”
Years later, she returned to Tybee to help install a marker. “Even before that, I’d go every year and sit on the rocks. Just to keep my word. And I think that’s absolutely the most precious thing I have.”
Reflecting on Legacy; Envisioning the Future: A Transition Not an Ending
At a board meeting in Pooler, Georgia—just outside Savannah—Ann Chinn sat beside an old friend, now one of the co-chairs of the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project. They were swapping updates when he casually remarked, “Ann, you’re damn near 80.” She blinked. “What?” she asked, startled and laughing.
The years had flown by.
That moment marked something. A kind of internal shift. “Eighty,” she repeated later, “that means my time is running out—on one level. And I need to start thinking about who’s going to carry this forward.”
What happens when she’s no longer the one booking ceremonies, making calls, writing the copy, and keeping the ancestors’ names alive in the world?
That tug between letting go and staying close is something many elders in movement work understand deeply. “In the same way that adolescence is a transition from childhood to adulthood, I’m trying to figure out what this transition looks like—for the last ten years of my life, maybe.”
The Middle Passage Project maintains an interactive map and database of documented arrival sites, along with additional resources.
Even as she considers slowing down, Ann’s vision for the future remains anchored in purpose. She talks about volunteering at the local elementary school just two blocks from her house. “I don’t see retiring,” she says plainly. “But I am figuring out how to redirect my energy.”
Over the last 14 years, Ann and her collaborators have gathered stories from people whose lives and lineages intersect with the untold chapters of the transatlantic slave trade. That, she says, is her continuing call. “How do we get people—whose voices and stories were never included—to feel comfortable telling those stories? And how do we build platforms that make those stories accessible?”
Her priority is about passing it on. “Taking what we’ve learned and making it useful for the next generation—that’s where I want to be. Maybe that’s what being an elder means.”
And when it comes to legacy, Ann is clear.
“I believe you can do whatever it is you believe you can do,” she says, recalling something Bernice Johnson Reagon once told her at a SNCC anniversary: “There’s a difference between knowledge, knowing, and believing. And the strongest of those is believing.”
That belief—fueled by ancestral presence, community trust, and unwavering commitment—is the foundation of the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project.
That map, those markers—they’re more than metal plaques. They are evidence. Testimony. A promise kept.
And for Ann Chinn, it’s all still unfolding.
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