Drummers, dancers and local residents welcomed the NAACP delegation at Kotoka International Airport, as the group made their long-awaited arrival in Ghana for the Year of Return.
The excitement was palpable as almost 300 African Americans touched down in Accra for an eventful week that is akin to a homecoming.
Continue reading “NAACP Group Arrives In Ghana Exactly 400 Years Since First Slaves Were Brought To U.S.”
By Ron Collins
As you already know, Tamar Braxton was in Nigeria with her man, David Adefeso and her son. More family members were there as well, and a few days ago, David decided to speak about this trip they had together as a family.
‘When I asked my @tamarbraxton to come with me to my mom’s birthday party in Nigeria I had no idea what to expect. I grew up in Lagos so I was excited to take her back home, but this was not one of our nice chill vacations under the warm Cancun resort sun No! This was a trip to Lagos, a tough, hot city where the “hustle” never ends. Not having lived there for almost 30 years I’d heard stories of how dangerous Lagos had become,’ David began his post.
Continue reading “Tamar Braxton’s boyfriend David Adefeso thanks her on their trip to Nigeria For His Mother’s Birthday Party”
By Johnaé Strong
When it comes to being Black, queer and immigrant in America, there is no safety. The countless violent attacks on people of color, the lack of action against guns after repeated mass shootings and the unrelenting excuses for assailants who are predominantly white and male point to a sinister truth about America: Violence and murder founded this nation and remain deeply entrenched in the state ideology. The president has reinforced this ideology by inciting anti-Black and anti-immigrant sentiment through the call for ICE raids and a border wall and shouts for American-born, non-white government officials to go back to their countries.
Continue reading “Reclaiming “Send Her Back”: A Call for Black Americans to Voyage to Africa”
By Karen Garloch
Because of his name and accent, it’s not unusual for Dr. Yele Aluko’s patients to ask where he’s from.But in the early 1990s, when he got the question from this new patient – a retired Charlotte principal and Johnson C. Smith University professor – Aluko asked one of his own: Where do you think?
Spencer Durante guessed correctly that his new heart specialist was from Nigeria, in west Africa. This rarely happened. In fact, when Aluko first came to Charlotte in 1989, one area hospital administrator suggested he change his name from Yele – pronounced yeh-lay – to Yale, so it would be easier to say.
Continue reading “Student and teacher reunite decades after meeting in Nigeria”
By Halligan Agade
American actor and film producer Samuel L. Jackson has traced his ancestry through Finding Your Roots, an American docu-series that uses traditional genealogical research and genetics to discover the family history of celebrities.
The Hollywood veteran found discovered his roots to the Bantu tribe in the West African nation of Gabon.
Continue reading “American actor Samuel L. Jackson travels to Africa to meet his relatives in Gabon”
By María Elena Romero, Producer Joyce Hackel
Jean Kapenda always hoped to help African Americans to find their African roots. That dream came true in a very personal way. Kapenda, a criminal justice professor at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, has been interested in genealogy and ancestry for a long time. A few years ago, he did a swab and sent it to a genetic testing site.
After getting the results, Kapenda, who is originally from Democratic Republic of Congo, has been able to trace hundreds of relatives in the Americas, most of them the descendents of people enslaved and sent on ships across the ocean.
Continue reading “A DNA test connected two distant cousins — and filled out a family history that slavery erased”
“Marie Ojiambo’s outstanding success as a research scientist is truly inspiring as she did not allow the challenges of Sickle Cell Disease to prevent her from achieving her professional career goals.”
BY LAUREN POTEAT
It has been more than 100 years since sickle cell disease was first discovered in America. Today, the rare hereditary blood disorder continues to affect millions of people throughout the world.
Continue reading “Millennial from Kenya is ‘sickle cell warrior’ – Florida Courier”
By Dwayne Wong (Omowale)
The slave trade not only physically separated African Americans and Africans, but it created a psychological separation as well. At the root of this continued division between the two groups are misconceptions rooted in the narratives that each group has been given about themselves, as well as each other. As African people we continue to view ourselves and each other through the lens of the colonizer. For this reason African Americans tend to view Africans in the same manner as Europeans do, and Africans tend to view African Americans the same way. In this article I will look at the roots of where these misconceptions came from.
Continue reading “Understanding the Division Between African Americans and Africans”
This month marks 400 years since the first African slaves arrived in the United States and the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade. Overall some 12 million enslaved Africans were transported across the Atlantic. This year is also Ghana’s ‘Year of Return’, an initiative launched by the Ghanaian government to encourage the African diaspora to come back to Ghana.
Sicley Williams moved to Accra from Atlanta in the US back in 2017. She told Newsday’s Bola Mosuro what about her personal reasons for making the move.
BY J.S. ADAMS
Close to the shores of Langma Beach in Ghana, West Africa, Carol Muhammad enjoys her six bedroom house with her husband, Robert Muhammad. The couple made the move from Phoenix, Ariz., to Ghana in May, after Robert Muhammad retired.
The two haven’t looked back.
Continue reading “Going Back to Africa a blessing: Blacks who live, work and play on the continent say returning to the Motherland is beautiful”
By Etsey Atisu
African Americans who have traced their ancestral roots to Ghana, and those living in Ghana with the hope of becoming citizens, have received another boost in their desires after they successfully received final documentation that officially makes them registered voters.
In December 2016, former president, John Dramani Mahama, granted 34 Afro-Caribbeans Ghanaian citizenship. In 2019, as part of activities marking the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in America, the government of Ghana launched the “Year of Return, Ghana 2019”.
By Haleluya Hadero
“Go Back to Africa”, a racist putdown long used used against African-Americans, Africans, and other black people in North America and Europe has been getting a social media makeover.
Black & Abroad, an Atlanta-based lifestyle and travel company targeting black travelers, is reclaiming the derogatory statement with a new tourism campaign encouraging African-Americans to indeed go back to Africa.
Continue reading “A “Go Back to Africa” media campaign uses AI to boost African American tourism”
By Valerie Russ
It was the evening before Independence Day, and about 40 black people whose families had come from around the globe gathered at S.A. Cafe in Upper Darby to talk about an independence of their own.
This was the first Diaspora Leaders Roundtable, sponsored by FunTimes magazine publisher Eric Nzeribe, for people of African descent — African-Americans, African immigrants, and African-Caribbeans — to talk about bridging cultural divides and building a future together.
Continue reading “‘The new diaspora is riding on the sacrifices of the old diaspora,’ and other takeaways from a black leaders roundtable”
50 Americans who traced their origin to Benin Kingdom have visited have visited the Palace of the Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, the Oba of Benin, Oba Ewuare II.
While welcoming the Americans, Oba Ewuare II commended them for making effort to trace their roots back home and thanked the ancestors for protecting them in their sojourn.
50 African-American have arrived the Nigerian city of Benin on a mission to trace their ancestry. The tourists, arrived Benin from California, United States of America (USA), and were entertained by the Benin Cultural Troupe as well as been treated to delicious local African dishes, including palm oil fruits soup (banga), blended vegetable (black) soup, owo soup, pounded yam and agidi (corncake) among others.