#29Black GHANA
The Warrior King; Ghana
I remember getting ‘All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes’ by Maya Angelou from AdminCyn and spending evenings on end reading it and squeezing in every minute I could spare to the last page.
Maya Angelou had moved to Accra, Ghana, for three years with her son Clyde and got a job as the Assistant Administrator of the School of Music and Drama at the University of Ghana. She went soul-searching as part of a community of “Revolutionist Returnees” inspired by the promise of Pan-Africanism — the principle of the political union of all indigenous African people. In the book she beautifully and candidly shares her experience as an African American in the motherland. She enjoyed the feeling of being home, being the majority, finding traces of her ancestral roots, new African friends that became family and being with other African American expatriates. In 1965 Malcolm X paid her a visit while on his trip around Africa and she accepted to go back to America to help him with Organization of Afro-America Unity. He was assassinated the day after she got back to the States.
During her stay she described her experience with Kwame Nkrumah. One of the most celebrated African founding fathers. He was the first prime minister and president of Ghana after leading the Gold Coast in 1957. An trained elementary school teacher who rose in politics after leaving to study abroad where he became part of a pro-independence organization of younger, more politically aggressive African students studying abroad. Came back home and fought the battles he needed to get his people free from the British and made Ghana the first colonial country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence.
Ghana today boasts of cocoa, vibrant Afrobeat, oil money, kente and they also low-key claim Jollof Rice. They have the Kejetia Market, the largest open air market in West Africa where you can get all your artifacts, beads, craft, fabric and more.
In September 28, 2018 American and Ghanaian dignitaries, Pan African advocates, spiritual leaders and the President of GhanaH.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo launched The Year of Return Ghana 2019; a time of homecoming for African Americans to Africa.
Through the historic initiative President Akufo-Addo declared Black Americans have earned the right “not by coincidence” but historically by a conscious effort that validated “the struggles, the strengths and links” between Africans on the continent and those who are part of the African Diaspora.
The goal is to get African Americans to return to Ghana and have a transformative experience of connecting with the continent from which they were taken 400 years ago.
In 1957, in his maiden independence address — then Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah spoke of Africa being liberated by Africans all over the world coming back to Africa. He must be well pleased with the strides the country is taking to make his revelation come true.
Ghana is also the land of our beloved Kofi Annan, the first black UN Secretary-General and diligent peace-maker who left his mark in the world through arbitrating and negotiating peace for humanity.
We love Ghana, and we hope to learn more about this phenomenal country with time.
One of our very own Jobbees is from this amazing country:
Phidelia Johnson
