The annual Africville Family Reunion is typically a welcoming, loving event, according to Ryan Somers.
Somers, who also goes by DJ RS Smooth, was DJing at the reunion on Saturday night. Hundreds of people were there, he said.
“There’s something about the vibe, like every time I DJ there, it’s almost like you can feel your ancestors. I was getting goosebumps. You can feel the love,” says Somers.
It’s means a lot to be there because his family is from there, he said. But it’s also easy to DJ for those people because they’re so “celebratory,” he said.
For 41 years the reunion has brought together people whose families used to live in Africville. The City of Halifax forced them out in the 1960s to build the MacKay Bridge.
Somers started playing at 9 p.m.
With every minute that went by, more and more people were coming to his tent, where he was DJing. Everybody was dancing and “just loving it” and “feeling good,” he said.
“We were just getting started. It was going to be a really good day.”
After about 45 minutes he heard the first “pops,” what he thought were fireworks.
He was in a tent near the harbour, further away from Africville Park, he said, which might have been why he didn’t realize they were gunshots.
At the park, two men opened fire on each other. Bullets hit four people in their early 20s and caused possible life-threatening injuries for another in their late teens, according to police.
Somers said it was chaos and terror, people running and scattering.
After the commotion died down, a light came on in the tent, and Somers didn’t realize how many people hid under the stage, some older folks that couldn’t run as well, he said.
“You could just see the fear in people’s eyes,” he said.
“Most of these faces that I’ve seen that fear on, I’m used to seeing them smiling and happy.”
A lot of people hid for a long time because they didn’t know what was happening, he said.
Somers stayed on the stage and eventually turned the music off, but he said he also stayed there in case he had to say something over the microphone. Given the chance, he’s not sure what he would have said.
Spirit of Africville
Somers host a radio segment called “$mooth Groove$” on CKDU 88.1 FM. He’s hosted the show since 1998.
He had some people call into the show to talk about whatever was on their mind after the shooting. Others sent him private messages, he said, and they chatted there.
One person mentioned how so many of the children at the reunion would be traumatized.
“Now their idea of Africville is tainted based on what happened when that’s the furthest thing from what Africville is.”
He said the reunion is the sort of place where you could let your kids run around without worrying, because everyone else there would feel a collective responsibility to look after them.
If you put up a tent in the park for the weekend, Somers said people are so nice that, even if you had no food, people would feed you for the weekend.
What makes him the most angry is how the shooting feeds into a harmful stereotype of what happens at events for black communities.
People don’t realize that these stereotypes are obstacles when you try to book a venue for an event, for example, he said.
“This is not who we are,” he said.
“The Africville spirit will never be broken. That’s something will never die.”
Several politicians condemned the violent incident, like Premier Tim Houston, NDP Leader Claudia Chender and Halifax Mayor Mike Savage.
Irvine Carvery, president of the Africville Genealogy Society, said there will be a reunion next year, but the board of directors will discuss what has to happen to improve safety at future gatherings, he told reporters Monday, according to the CBC.
“We are not going to allow that incident to define who we are as people,” Carvery said.
