Above: Heritage Works took 10 current or recent ensemble members to Dakar, Senegal, with funding from the Knight Arts Challenge Detroit People’s Choice Award. Photo credit Cary Junior II via Heritage Works on Flickr.

When Cary Junior arrived in Dakar, Senegal, last December, his first concern was the bugs.

“It was late at night,” he says. “We were in a small airport and our bags were piled up and we were each trying to find our bag. It was already hot and muggy. It didn’t really stick to me yet just how surreal it was for me to be there. I just didn’t want to get bit by any bugs.”

That fear quickly subsided as the power of Dakar pulled at him and the other nine youth who traveled to Senegal with Heritage Works, a cultural arts organization that shares West African traditions, particularly dance, with Detroiters. Typically, Heritage Works brings “tradition bearers” to the Motor City, but for the organization’s 15th anniversary, Executive Director Rhonda Greene asked the youth program how they wanted to celebrate.

“The idea that floated to the top was to travel and tour,” she says. “So our board met and got behind the goal.”

Still, raising the money for 10 members ages 16-22 to travel to West Africa for 10 days would be a huge undertaking. So when Greene discovered in August 2015 that the organization was both a finalist in the Knight Arts Challenge in Detroit and one of four competing for the People’s Choice Award, everything changed. She knew the $20,000 prize that came with a People’s Choice win (supporters text their votes) could make the trip a reality for Junior and others.

The night of the awards, Greene told her friends and board members that she would text them the minute Knight President Alberto Ibargüen announced the winners. The first good news came when Heritage Works was awarded $100,000 to bring a West African “grio” to Detroit to mentor local artists and youth in the oral traditions of Malie and Senegal. But when Ibargüen called out the People’s Choice winner, he named the Hamtramck Free School.

It was then, Greene says, “grace in action” intervened. Instead of just collecting their win and cash, the Hamtramck Free School offered to give their $20,000 to one of the other winners if Knight Foundation would fund the other two People’s Choice finalists. Ibargüen shocked them all by giving $20,000 to all four organizations.

“It was a spiritual moment for me,” says Greene. “We went from losing—I mean, I’d already texted people—to winning.”

Six weeks later, she was on a plane bound for Senegal, where the group would study with the Baklama Danse Ensemble, a Dakar­-based youth­ ensemble, go back stage with the Ballet National du Senegal, visit Goree Island and the Maison de Esclaves (House of the Slaves), and spend time at an orphanage.

“We spent almost every day dancing,” Greene says, then adding with a laugh, “ we showed them the Whip/Nae Nae.

Artistic Director Khady Aye Badji of the Baklama Dance Ensemble in Dakar, Senegal, and Heritage Works member Immanuel Greene play drums. Photo by Heritage Works on Flickr.

“There was so much… We did a debrief after the slave house and it shocked the youth how commercial the slave house was with all the vendors outside. But it showed the tie to commercialism that drove the slave trade.”

For Junior, who grew up in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak, some of the small, quiet moments were most impactful: sitting by the water outside their hotel, walking through the dusty streets, watching the peoples.

“I think the moment I loved the most, we were on the boat going to Goree Island that was the last stop for the slaves being shipped to the Americas. We met someone from New Jersey who was originally from Senegal. He spoke English so he came over and he said, ‘Welcome home.’ And that really hit me. We are in Africa. Think about it. We are in Africa. I was emotional about that for the rest of the day.”

Greene hopes replicate the program so that more Heritage Works youth can travel, experience life outside of Detroit and connect with their traditions. The impact is “still unfolding,” she says, but already there is a cultural shift and awareness that will continue to blossom.

“One morning as I sat by the water writing reflections in my journal I saw these kids playing in the pool and they were so filled with joy,” says Junior, who is a senior at Morehouse College in Atlanta and has been involved with Heritage Works since second grade. “That joy, it doesn’t take much. It made me think about the simpler things. We get lost with our technology and jobs and trying to make money and be a doctor or the president. Where these kids found happiness in this random afternoon playing the pool. I thought, ‘Wow. I want to be able to get like that.’ That was one of my biggest takeaways.”

Amy Haimerl is a Detroit-based author and journalist. Follow her on Twitter @haimerlad.

The 2016 Knight Arts Challenge runs April 4-May 2. Read more at knightarts.org. 

Heritage Works member Callie Munn is silhouetted in the Door of No Return, the last threshold many Africans crossed before boarding slave ships. Photo courtesy Heritage Works on Flickr.