“I recently visited the “Wrapped in Pride: Ghanian Kente and African-American Identity” exhibit at UCLA’s Fowler Museum of Cultural History. This great exhibit displayed fine Kente cloth that has been strip-woven by the Asante and Ewe people of Ghana and is the best known of African textiles. These beautiful cloths are made for all sorts of occasions including weddings, ceremonies and parades.
When I first entered the exhibit, I watched a young man weaving an Asante cloth in a video. He wove the cloth so fast and quickly and with so much grace and expertise, it was hard to keep up! The Asante people start weaving Kente cloth when they are as young as six years old. The boy in the video put thread on a weaving loom and put more yarn through the spaces in the threads. It’s a really complicated process.
It was cool how the patterns on the cloth just jumped up at me when I saw it. Their use of symbols like animals, and bright colors like blue, red and yellow caught my eye. The Asante and Ewe people use materials like cotton, rayon and lurex when weaving their cloth.
While at the exhibit, I noticed that they displayed pictures of many important people that have worn or still wear Kente cloth. You might know of Muhammed Ali and his visit to Ghana in 1964. He mostly wore Kente while in Ghana. Kente cloth achieving national, and indeed international prominence, during Pres-ident Bill Clinton’s eleven-day trip to six African countries in March 1998. His first stop was in Accra where he appeared with his wife and the President and wife of Accra in front of a crowd of 50,000. President and Mrs. Clinton were presented with and photographed in a full man’s Kente cloth and shawl, respectively. He and Mrs. Clinton were also photographed wearing individual stoles with their names woven into the strips. The actual Kente cloth that they wore is on display at the museum.
I saw a quilt trimmed with Kente cloth dedicated to the Tuskegee Airmen, a famous group of black pilots who fought in World War II. It was made by Dorothy Taylor, a well-known Los Angeles African-American quilt maker. I liked how she used a variety of colors on the Kente borders to trim the black and white pictures on the quilt.
Kente can be used in many ways
Kente is also available for graduation day. You can choose a robe or a stole, which is kind of a scarf that wraps around your neck. You can put your school’s name and graduation year or put your fraternity letters on it. While looking through a book that has historical information on the exhibit (which can be bought in the gift shop), I found this quote from Teresa Smith, an administrator at Essex County College. She comments about the stoles: “I first saw Kente at another graduation that I attended, and I thought it was very beautiful to see everyone wearing it. I saw other ethnic groups wearing it also, and I said ‘Oh that’s pretty nice that they didn’t mind wearing it.’ Some people might think ‘no I’m not wearing that because I’m not African American. I’m not African.’ But they didn’t seem to feel that way. They went ahead and put it on, and I thought that was pretty nice. Actually it’s a compliment that they would want to wear that, to be associated with it.”
Kente cloth is even used to dress Barbie dolls. Can you believe that? Other modern day uses include wedding dresses laced with kente cloth. As you can see, Kente is used in the lives of many people today.
I wore authentic Kente cloth
As a part of opening day festivities, I was called into a room where you had a chance to try on real, authentic Kente cloth. I thought it was cool that I was going to wear the Kente because I felt like I could recognize my heritage and keep that tradition alive. Two women wrapped me in cloth that was soft to the touch but heavy on my body. The cloth was first put around my waist and then put over one of my shoulders, exposing the other. Then they placed two beautiful gold rings on my fingers. One of the rings was a tortoise and a snail which represented strength for the king. Another was a frog which represented the length of distance traveled by the king. They also put a large bird bracelet on me. It meant that no matter how far the king traveled, he would always come back to his people. I really felt like a king at that point.
The Kente cloth exhibit is a great place to go from an educational standpoint because it shows a lot of African-American culture. If you are looking for a place to go to experience something different, this is the place to be. The experiences that I had at the exhibit have inspired me to get a Kente stole for my graduation.”