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Summer is always a time of longing for me, as I see the presence of black family reunions in St. Louis. You can ride through Forest Park or Tower Grove Park on any given summer day and observe banners with the family name hung proudly or recognize a sea of same-colored shirts buzzing around a picnic shelter.

My family, especially on my mother’s side, is probably like some other black families who lack the resources to pull such a gathering together. When my parents left the South for a new life, they settled where no other family members lived. We had nobody but us, which accounts for how close my siblings and I are, but that didn’t stop my yearning for cousins and grandmas. It seemed that other kids were always talking about their Grandma or Cousin This or That. I felt woefully deprived of an extended family.

Last summer as I was driving down Delmar Boulevard, I saw a group of youth flagging cars into the Burger King lot for a car wash. Forever the sucker to support enterprising young people, I pulled in.

I saw Sherri Robins hustling with bucket and rags. (Sherri was the creative force behind the beautiful Afrocentric plaques Better Family Life gives out annually for community service.) She explained that the car wash was a fundraiser for their 51st family reunion. All I could say was, “Wow!”

Black folks are really - I mean, really - into family reunions. It is part of the radical response to the brutal destruction of our families during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. For us, it the important connection and reconnection of our families in a way that is very different from other ethnic groups. I knew all this was not just my imagination.

In a report entitled “More than a Picnic: African American Family Reunions,” Dr. Ione Vargus confirms that we participate in reunions in “numbers and percentages and with a consistency to which no other group can make claim.” The subject is so intriguing for Dr. Vargus that she founded the Family Reunion Institute at Temple University.

Vargus goes on to point out that modern-day family reunions are our attempts to restore a family structure disrupted by chattel slavery. Continued pressure on the family structure and its functioning caused by detrimental corporate and governmental policies are an on-going challenge.

Black family reunions have definitely evolved. While many families continue to do the weekend activity format, some hold workshops during the reunion or plan group trips to interesting places. Others are even more sophisticated and have institutionalized the family reunion by publishing newsletters, establishing interactive websites and even launching family reunion businesses.

So, don’t worry about me. When I see the Griffin Family T-shirt with the family tree on the front or do the Second Line at Fred and Mary Smith’s Mardi Gras family fundraiser, I’m relishing the fact that black families have found an enjoyable and consistent way to maintain their identity and heritage despite the assaults on the American family. Luckily for me, they don’t have a problem including non-biological members into their fold.

Yeah - we are family.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Jamala Rogers is the leader of the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis and the Black Radical Congress National Organizer. Click here to contact Ms. Rogers.