When Ramatoulie and Fatima’s great grandmother, Mary Black, met an American soldier in her native Liberia, she probably didn’t know that she was about to chart a course for her descendants that was different than the one she had experienced. She married that soldier and had a daughter named Georgia, who was born and raised in Liberia. She eventually moved to the United States, but she was not accepted by her husband’s family. The union did not last, yet she remained in the country and spent the rest of her life here. She migrated from the South and ended up in Pittsburgh. Eventually she brought her granddaughter Roberta over from Liberia to live with her and finish her last year of high school.
At a party hosted by African students, Roberta met a fellow African immigrant from The Gambia, Ouse Rashid. He had also come to Pittsburgh as a teenager to live with a family friend and complete high school. They eventually married and remained in Pittsburgh where both of their daughters were born and raised.
(Quick history lesson: Ramatoulie and Fatima’s mother is from Liberia, which is a West African country founded by citizens of the United States and ex-Caribbean slaves as a colony for former slaves and their free black descendants. Because of Liberia’s origins, their mother’s native language is English. Their father’s native language is Wolof.)
Although Ramatoulie and Fatima are a decade apart in age, their experiences growing up in Pittsburgh were very similar. They attended schools that were either predominantly or significantly Black, they always had a strong connection to the Black community in Pittsburgh, and they both feel that they had a strong African upbringing despite being raised in the United States. Fatima was always aware that everyone knew that their parents were African, and though never ashamed, she always felt distinctly different from her peers because of it. Both sisters were called the commonly used ‘African booty scratcher’ slur, but Ramatoulie remembers how everyone in elementary school seemed to get teased for something. That happened to be what other kids zeroed in on with her.
Each year on the first day of school, Ramatoulie was prepared for teachers to hesitate when they came to her name during roll call. After years of going through school with the same group of kids though, she humorously recalls classmates yelling out, ‘It’s Ramatoulie!’ before the new teacher could even attempt the pronunciation.
Ramatoulie and Fatima's parents didn't allow them to do the same things that their friends were doing. They ate primarily Liberian food, trips to fast food chains like McDonald’s were a rare occurrence, and when it came to sleepovers, their father could not understand why he should allow them to sleep somewhere else when they had a perfectly good home of their own. When friends would visit their house, they found it odd when they had a difficult time understanding their mother when she talked. While they knew that she had an accent and a rapid cadence when she spoke, they of course had no difficulty understanding what she said.
Despite these experiences, they never felt ostracized or shunned because they were the daughters of African immigrants. There was just always an awareness that the culture and norms inside of their household were different than those of the outside world.
College brought on a noticeable shift for both Ramatoulie and Fatima. They may not have had many friends in Pittsburgh who shared their same experience, but they encountered many people in college who did. Fatima, who graduated from Howard University, tapped into a community on campus where there was a thriving African Student Association, people proudly wore African clothing, and there was no shortage of African centered programming and events. Although Ramatoulie graduated from Oberlin College in rural Ohio, she encountered a similar community there, specifically as part of an African dance troupe called Dance Diaspora.
During college they found themselves embracing the Afrobeats movement and growing to love the music that they used to plead with their mother to turn down while riding in the car (these pleas usually made her turn the volume up). They found music made by artists their age, who sang about things relevant to them. Adulthood brought opportunities to travel back and forth to Gambia and Liberia, and an evolving consciousness that while most Black Americans had to search for their cultural heritage, they already knew theirs.
Both Ramatoulie and Fatima agree that their biggest cultural influence has been African dance. It was such a dominant part of their upbringing that they don’t remember a time when they weren’t dancing. They point out that many Africans use dance to celebrate and enjoy life, and that it is part of their everyday lifestyle. They danced constantly growing up, and there was a time when Fatima had aspirations of becoming the next Fatima Robinson, the iconic choreographer associated with such artists as Aaliyah, Mary J. Blige and Michael Jackson. They both felt the pressure to major in fields that were perceived as more stable and potentially lucrative, but they have always come back to dance.
Ramatoulie and Fatima currently reside in Prince George’s County, MD, and have channeled their unique perspective and lifelong passion for African dance into a tangible business. They are the founders of Dance the Royal Beat (DTRB), an Afrobeats dance-fitness company based in Washington D.C. The mission of DTRB is to provide their community with cultural activities to enrich their lives and their future, with a vision of empowering their community globally. They are fulfilling lifelong dreams and pursuing their passion in a way that honors their cultural heritage. At this point in their lives, both Ramatoulie and Fatima feel privileged to have grown up in the United States the daughters of a Liberian mother and Gambian father. Having always had a direct connection to their native culture and traditions, they both feel that they have had the best of both worlds.
