This picture was taken in June 2023 on the beach at Coney Island. It’s a photograph of the ceremony called The Tribute to the Ancestors of the Middle Passage. The ceremony speaks to the history of the transatlantic slave trade to North America that primarily occurred during the years 1619 to 1808. The ceremony is held at Coney Island, as it was a port that received slave ships at that time. Primarily in the area called Gravesend. A neighborhood in Brooklyn. I wanted to photograph the ceremony because I first thought it was visually beautiful. Most importantly, I see it as a powerful act of defiant joy. An act that I believe all humans should engage in.