![]() ![]() In the context of the broader Black Power and Civil Rights Movements, and against the backdrop of notions of Pan-Africanism, “jumping the broom” began to reemerge in the Black American psyche and consequently in wedding ceremonies across the country. According to Tyler Parry, Assistant Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Nevada, Roots’ popularity “reintroduced the unique matrimonial rite to American popular consciousness.” ![]() In the series, Kunta Kinte, originally from the Gambia, “jumps the broom” with his love interest Bell to validate their marriage. In 1977, an adaptation of Alex Haley’s Roots novel aired on ABC television as an 8-episode miniseries. The cause for that uptake, as well as the origins of the practice itself, are at once controversial and culturally significant. Strong noted, “we cannot know whether it was the broom, the act of jumping, or the use of wood, that caused slaves to adopt the binding ritual.”Įven so, the practice persisted, and in fact persists to this day, with a notable resurgence in the latter half of the last century. In “Jumping the Broom: Myth, Memory and Neo-Traditionalism in African-American Weddings,” researcher Imani G. It’s hard to know what part of this act served to legitimize/solidify a couple’s nuptials. In many ways interlaced with the wedding ceremony itself, “Jumping the Broom” is known as a symbol of love as much as one of defiance.Īs a tradition most notably tied to African Americans, the practice is commonly attributed to enslaved Africans who, when denied marital rights by the state, would boldly perform their own rituals to validate their unions. ![]()
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