Spotlight! Symposium: Toya Smith

Hoodoo is Black Culture: Ancestor Veneration in the Everyday

Priestess and conjurewoman Toya Smith will trace the everyday cultural aspects of African Americans, exploring how those aspects are influenced by traditional African cultures brought over by ancestors. She will discuss how those aspects of culture are, in fact, ancestor veneration and a maintained belief in and participation in an African-based spirituality. Her talk will cover the Black church, Black music, tradition, and superstition.