In August of 2019, it will mark the auspicious 400-year anniversary of when an English ship brought a small group of enslaved Africans to Jamestown, Virginia. While this technically wasn’t the first time that black slaves were bought to the Americas, it is generally considered to be the beginning of the North American Slave Trade. Now, Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo has declared 2019 as “The Year of Return,” launching a series of programs encouraging people of African ancestry to journey “home.” Quartz Africa has more on the story.
Notably, the notion of reaching out to the African diaspora has always been close to the heart of Ghanian politics. The country’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, preached Pan-Africanism after seeing racism in America first-hand as a student in the 1930’s and 1940s. Nkrumah and Ghana would also have a great influence on Martin Luther King, Jr., and at times, the country was home to the likes of Maya Angelou, Julian Mayfield, W.E.B. DuBois, and George Padmore.
Fast forward to today, and Ghana is still positioning itself as a home for global Africa. The country has been host to the biennale PANAFEST/Emancipation Day celebration since 1992 and in 2001, the Right of Abode law was passed, giving anybody of African ancestry in the Americas, the right to stay in Ghana indefinitely. In December of 2016, 016, 34 ‘returnees’ became Ghanaians in a naturalization ceremony attended by then-president John Mahama. “I have only restored to you what rightfully belongs to you and was painfully taken away,” president Mahama said after handing out the naturalization certificates.
Source: How Ghana Positioned Itself As A “Home Away From Home” For The Black Diaspora
