My relationship with friends, colleagues, and institutions in Paris continues to this day, including, later on, with the 2016 exhibition of “Dakar 66: Chronicles d’un festival panafricains” at the Musee Quai Branly. Because I participated in the original festival in April 1966, the Panafest Project of scholars in Paris selected me for interviewing.

 

In addition, I was invited to participate in an international conference in Dakar in November 2016, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the ‘66 event. My paper, to be published this year in a volume of conference papers, draws upon the 2013 interview. The festival of ’66 had a dramatic impact on my life, nurturing the budding African American scholar within me to continue on in my academic work.