Thread by @zwingham

"The first generation lives, the second generation rejects, the third generation researches..."

With this refrain, he began to narrate the history of Ottoman slavery & chart the lives of his family. Today's #BlackHistoryMonth profile is writer & activist, Mustafa Olpak.

The fifth child of Mehmet, a stone mason, and Kemale, a seamstress, Mustafa Olpak was born in Ayvalık, Turkey in October 1953. After finishing primary school, he began working in a lathe workshop. Later, he would get involved in labor movements, such as the Tariş Direnişi.

In the 1990s, he began researching and writing on a persistent question during his childhood: Who am I? In time, he would learn that his ancestors were likely enslaved in Kenya and sold in the Ottoman Empire. His family's history would become the subject matter of his two books.

After his mother's passing in 2001, he published Kölelikten Özgürlüğe: Arap Kadın Kemale. A few years & more research later, he would publish Kenya-Girit-İstanbul: Köle Kıyısından İnsan Biyografileri in 2005. It was translated into French in 2006 (and soon in English!).

With the success of Kenya-Girit-Istanbul, Olpak was able to organize the Afro-Turk community and founded the Africans' Culture and Solidarity Society in Ayvalık in 2006. The opening ceremony was attended by journalists, academics, and the head of the UNESCO Slave Routes Project.

Since 2006, the Afro Turk community has organized to recover and preserve their histories. For instance, in partnership with Tarih Vakfı, the community pursued an oral history project in 2008 entitled, "Sessiz Bir Geçmişten Sesler Afrika Kökenli ‘Türk’ Olmanın Dünü ve Bugünü".

Moreover, the community organizes a once "lost" festival called Dana Bayramı, or the Calf Festival, which was regularly celebrated by enslaved Africans in the Ottoman Empire. Now, it serves as an annual gathering for the African diaspora in Turkey. This is Mustafa Olpak's legacy.

For additional reading:

The Fate of the Afro-Turks: Nothing Left But the Colour - Qantara.de en.qantara.de/content/the-fa…

a reflection on dana bayramı by @AlevScott

Postcard from . . . Turkey ft.com/content/e79c9f… via @financialtimes

you can also check out this ongoing visual project by photojournalist @bradleysecker bradleysecker.com/afroturks#1