Some Pinkster History in Brief

By Dr. Norvell, Founder/President African American Pinkster Committee of New York

May 13, 2014

 

Pinkster is the oldest African American holiday of the Thirteen Colonies which eventually became the United States of America.  Pinkster as celebrated by the Eleven Angolans is in parallel with the European celebration of Pentecost, designating the 50th day after Easter. The Ethiopian name for Pentecost is “Paraclitus”. Many of the Eleven Angolans were Congolese but were all Bantu.  The Bantu are the largest ethnic group in Africa whose population spread from Central to the tip of South Africa.  Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu, and many others are Bantu.  The Eleven Angolans involuntarily came to New York, then Nieuw Amsterdam in 1626.  In the Africanized celebration of Pinkster, an African King was inaugurated for each year the celebration was held.  He presided over the ceremonies in the Commons in Manhattan, now known as the African American Burial Ground National Monument.  

 

The Pinkster King acted as what would be known today as a “shop steward”, who advocated for the African slave, as a CHAMPION who later served as a leader for other people of Color and under privileged European immigrants who settled in early Pinkster was also celebrated in Albany on Pinkster Hill where the State Capitol Building stands today!  There were also major Pinkster Celebrations in Poughkeepsie, Troy, Long Island, and Brooklyn.  By 1800, the celebration of Pinkster spread down to Maryland and an offshoot called “Lection Day” had spread throughout New England with the election of African Kings and governors.  Some of the important symbols of Pinkster are the red and pink Azaleas, the Circle Dances of the Congolese including the Ring Shout and the Bomba, and the Congolese Cosmogram.  

 

The celebration of Pinkster is the oldest Christian celebration in New York, One Hundred and Forty – Six years prior to the observance of the first Saint Patrick’s Day in New York in 1768.