In 1970 the Kingdom of Oyotunji arose in the southern low country shadowed by plantations where once enslaved Africans harvested South Carolina gold rice and Gullah-Geechee lore resisted erasure. The seeds of awakening were being planted by Walter Eugene King and a dedicated group of African Americans amid the chaos of the civil rights struggle, the Black Power movement and anti-war protests, intending to restore cultural glory to African Americans. Through ancestor worship, rhythmic drumbeats, tribal marked faces, lively singing and earth shaking beneath bare dancing feet, the journey revealed in the book Seeds of Awakening: The Creation of Oyotunji African Kingdom is a story of a movement whose hiding in plain sight existence greatly influenced black identity and pride in 20th century America, and, as referenced in 2023 by the New York Times, Oyotunji is "Overlooked no more."
...I applaud Iya Orite Olasowo-Adefunmi for documenting the history of Orisha coming to the African American community by way of Oyotunji, and I salute her enthusiastic commitment to its development and growth, alongside her husband and the priests and priestesses who supported the idea from its inception. I also celebrate the role the ancestors had me, my family and our elders play in the profound birth of a historic landmark for African Americans and their history. May Sngo always protect you and Oyotunji. Ase'o!
Oba Irawo Ernesto Pichardo
Priest of Sango, Miami, Florida
There is no more prolific demonstration of the presence and living history of the Yoruba presence in America than Oyotunji African Kingdom in Sheldon, SC. We commend HRG Iya Orite Olasowo-Adefunmi for being both an active contributor to and custodian of the development of Oba Oseijeman's African Restoration Movement in America.
High Chief Nathaniel B. Styles, Jr.,
The Nana Kwaku Ankobeahene II of Ghana and Otunba Folungbade of Yorubaland
...With an insider's standpoint and the vantage point of a seasoned elder looking back at the phenomenal feat that created the Kingdom, former Olori (Queen] of the founder of Oyotunji offers a never before reflection of the Seeds of Cultural and Political Revolution that led to the awakening of thousands of Africans in America. A must read!
Kamari Maxine Clarke, Ph.D,
Professor of Anthropology at the University of California Los Angeles,
author of Mapping Yoruba Networks: Power and Agency in the Making of Transnational Communities (Duke U Press, 2004).