Overview

“The Jonah People: A Legacy of Struggle and Triumph was created to end the suffering of a people, who could then end the suffering of a nation, who could then end the suffering of the world." – Hannibal Lokumbe

Few artists have conveyed the African American experience in America as movingly and as powerfully as Hannibal Lokumbe. The Jonah People: A Legacy of Struggle & Triumph, his most ambitious project to date, is a reckoning with the past that points toward a redemptive vision for the future.

The story begins in Africa at the gateway to the ships that transported kidnapped people across the Atlantic into slavery. Audiences will experience the journey from captivity, oppression and servitude, the loss of all freedoms, to the struggle to sustain hope for a way forward. Over the course of this powerful and epic production — complete with full orchestra and chorus, nine vocal soloists, a Jazz quintet, an African drum and dance ensemble, and over thirty actors — Lokumbe will celebrate the spirit of those who endured, those ancestors whose gifts of hope, perseverance and resilience have produced successive generations of black visionaries and world-changers.