When I was ten years old my mother packed my suitcases and we flew to New York City for holiday. And during our visit my mother took me to see THE RIVER NIGER, a play on Broadway written by Joseph Walker. It was my first memorable experience with theater and African-Americans, and it was my first contact with this mysterious thing called the river Niger.

By the time I was thirty I was living in New York City, Harlem. Fresh out of grad school, living in a roomy apartment within a building that was populated by friendly drug dealers, rats, mice, a few artists, several Hatian-American families, and over 50 black Africans from Mali. All whose first name seemed to be Amadou. And last named seemed to be Diallo. Which I found out was quite similiar to the common John Smith.

During this time, a young Malian man named Amadou Diallo was shot and murdered in the Bronx. I will never forget the outrage I felt. A young man, living in a foreign place, simply trying to earn financial freedom, but shot down and killed in a case of mistaken identity.

The river Niger runs through Mali.

A few years later, my friend Jimmie was in town from Cleveland and we checked out a revival of the River Niger. A few friends of mine were in the play: Arthur French, Justice Pratt. All I remember of that production was it was extremely hot [no air conditioner], lots of talking audience members, and that I kept repeating to Jimmie my mother had taken me to see this play when I was a little boy. He seemed... half-interested.

The river Niger runs through Mali.

A few years later, I was living in Los Angeles, working as a writer on the CW series GIRLFRIENDS. It was my first year and was desperately jonzing for some creative release. So my friend Nichelle Tramble decided to put together a Book Club. I joined. We read a few books of course and had great discussions, but the interesting thing was one of the members was a executive from Disney Animated Features. This executive wanted to read my plays. I let her. She called me and set up a meeting at Disney Animated to discuss developing an African-centered movie about Sundiata, the founder of the Mali Empire.

The river Niger runs through Mali where Sundiata once ruled.

The meeting went great. They asked me to come back and pitch a movie around Sundiata OR... any African-centered story I felt inspired to write. A week later, I was back at Disney Animated pitching a movie centered on Timbuktu.

Things didn't pan out with the further development of the Mali-centered movie. I'll just say there was some conflicts.

But more importantly a year ago I had my DNA tested to determine the birthplace of my ancient maternal ancestor. The mtdna results arrived and simply said West Africa. Haplogroup L2A. I did a little investigating on this haplogroup and concluded her birthplace was the Angola region of west Africa. Again, it was just a conclusion. Maybe just exhausted fantasy.

Then yesterday. I was reading thru several post re DNA testing and African-Americans on a few genealogy sites. And a great number of posts were referencing a site where you could submit your mtdna mutations and it'll match your mutations with identical mutations in Africa. And THAT will help determine the exact birthplace of your maternal ancestor. After trying to figure out the whereabouts of these mutations on my results, I finally found them. They were a series of numbers and letters that previously made no sense to me. All of this time I was sitting on my own treasure.

I submitted the mutations and the match was... MALI.

Not only was the match MALI, but it gave you an option to check your pedigree [specific names and locations of other people with your identical mutations.] Would you believe two names appeared: FAMISSA SAMAKE from the village of Tinkele, Mali. And Mobobly DIALLO from Tinkele, Mali. These two people are actually ancestors of someone in present-day Mali. And were born in the 1800s.

The village of Tinkele is two hours from Bamako—Mali's capital.

The village of Tinkele sits on the river Niger.

Talk about a serpentine path tracking back to the beginning.

I am pleased I've made this connection. And that I can speak with authority about at least one of my African ancestors. And that makes me very dangerous. :)

Until next time,

Keith