The Ga people of Ghana, West Africa, begin a celebration in August that continues as a month-long thanksgiving known as Ga Homowo — the Harvest Festival. Many ethnic groups in Ghana and all over Africa have similar traditions.
Ceremonies and rituals vary, but the purpose is the same — remembering lean times, being thankful for present blessings and praying for future abundance.
There are no written documents to account for the origin of Homowo, but according to traditional stories, the Ga people emigrated from the Middle East and descended throughout the Sahara to Benin City in Nigeria. They settled there for a time before relocating to Accra, sometime between the 14th and 16th centuries.
Legends say the Ga had only a bit of corn and palm oil when they landed, which women ground and mixed together to make kpokpoi. After the men caught fish, the clan enjoyed their first meal after landing — kpokpoi and fish soup.
The immigrants planted millet and corn seeds they had brought with them. Then, they endured a long, lean waiting period while crops matured. When the harvest came, the Ga held a feast and gave thanks to their gods. The first celebration became the Hom Yi Womo, meaning a “hooting at hunger.”
Thanksgiving began in the United States in the 17th century as a celebration, a friendly coming-together of European settlers and the Indigenous people of North America. The Native Americans had welcomed the Pilgrims to this land and shared the vast knowledge they had about the continent’s flora and fauna. They explained planting corn and plowing and taught the newcomers trapping and fishing.
According to tradition, both peoples slaughtered turkeys, made dressing and had a version of cranberry sauce at the first Thanksgiving. They feasted together. During those tough early days for the newcomers, Native Americans extended their hands and opened their hearts. Their hospitality and support helped Europeans survive in an unfamiliar land.
We know of the bitter and bloody relationship that subsequently developed when conquest and colonization replaced the spirit of sharing and cooperation. The vicious assault on Native Americans is not widely discussed anymore. The holiday has come to mean turkey and the trimmings, pre-Christmas sales and football. The history of the brutal process used by Europeans to dispossess the original people of their land is not pretty. And now it is almost completely ignored.
In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad had Marlowe define the “conquest of the Earth” as “taking from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves.”
In both sub-Saharan Africa and North America, the native people were mostly cooperative in the early days of European arrival. Nevertheless, conquest and colonization ensued later on both sides of the Atlantic.
Although some of us of African descent in this country now enjoy modest affluence, the overall status of our people must be defined largely in terms of the marginalized and less fortunate.That shared vulnerability became unmistakable this past year, when an unforgiving tornado swept through St. Louis and disrupted the lives of many of us and our neighbors.
So, we pause this Thanksgiving not only to remember those ancient harvest traditions, but also to give thanks for the extraordinary strength, unwavering community and will to survive that have defined our city in recent months.
The May 16 tornado tore through North St. Louis, overwhelming neighborhoods that have anchored Black families for generations. Winds ripped roofs from homes, toppled brick walls, crushed cars and left entire blocks unrecognizable. Five lives were lost. More than 5,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed, with total losses estimated at $1.6 billion. In communities already strained by decades of disinvestment, the storm exposed how fragile basic safety has become.
Yet even before the dust settled, neighbors stepped forward. Within two days volunteers launched a community-organized effort known as The People’s Response, moving door to door with food, cleanup supplies and assistance for those hardest hit. The work showed what it looks like when people refuse to wait for systems that should have acted faster. We are thankful that, in the face of staggering loss, hope did not falter. That spirit of showing up for one another continues to guide the path toward rebuilding.
Our resilience was tested in other ways, too. Policy shifts in Washington rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion programs and froze or eliminated thousands of federal jobs. Black workers make up nearly one in five federal employees, so these cuts hit especially hard — particularly in agencies where Black staff form a large share of the workforce.
The 43-day government shutdown drove that reality home. As paychecks stopped and benefits were disrupted, families were reminded how close many households are to the edge. Black families experience food insecurity at more than twice the rate of white households, so any threat to SNAP benefits carried real consequences.
And so today we give thanks — for one another, for a resilience that rises even when storms and setbacks converge, and for the determination to keep rebuilding and renewing our communities, together.