The food at the Coleman-Richards reunion in Fayette County, Ky., offers a look at the family’s ties to America and Liberia.
Photographs by Andrew Cenci
Reporting from Fayette County, Ky.
On a Saturday afternoon last month in Fayette County, Ky., members of the extended Coleman family lined up along a table topped with chafing dishes of white rice, fried chicken wings and dark-green Liberian palava sauce made with stewed spinach. Nearby, a large grill sizzled, hot dogs cooking over its flames. Afrobeats, funk and classic R&B played underneath a tent providing shade from the summer sun.
In many ways, it looked like any other family reunion: Adults jumped up to do the electric slide at the opening guitar solo of “Before I Let Go” by Frankie Beverly and Maze, and did the Cha Cha Slide. Relatives milled about, bringing out more plastic plates or utensils. Young children and adults competed in musical chairs and sack races, laughter punctuating conversations and music.
But, here, those in attendance were connecting across centuries and continents, as the descendants of William D. Coleman, Liberia’s 13th president who emigrated from the United States in 1853, met and broke bread with their American relatives, whose ancestors had stayed in Kentucky. This year was of particular significance: It was the first time the Coleman-Richards family reunion was held in the same county where William D. Coleman’s American ancestors were enslaved.
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