The most interesting place I’ve been has been to Elmina Castle, Cape Coast, Ghana, West Africa.
It has been called the Journey of a Lifetime - and certainly in a strange way it was for me also.
For an estimated 12 million Africans, the Castle of Elmina housed the "Door Of No Return” — out of which they boarded a ship and never saw their families nor set foot in their homes again.
Many Americans can trace their ancestry back to this exact location, where their relatives survived a harrowing journey only to endure a life of slavery and oppression in their new world.
My mind went into a state of shock as we followed Nana (our guide) through the cells where these African men and women were held, waiting as despondent, tortured and helpless captives of Elmina Castle.
I took this journey with a good friend whose roots are firmly set in Accra, Charlotte Mensah. Also on this journey were two fellow Ghanaian acquaintances. For one, named Ekow Barnes, it was also his first time to Elmina.
Partly as a distraction from my "beyond the senses of sensitivity,” and an overwhelming urge to run escaping and fleeing from this tour, I brought along my camera. But after feeling some of the strangest, indescribable sensations of connection in some of the castle's rooms (and being unable to photograph for myself) then and there I decided to chronicle Ekow's visit instead.
So, hoisted safely behind my Nikon buddy, I took in this incredibly emotional history through my tear filled lens — one African-American's pilgrimage to another African man's spiritual homecoming.
This journey happened in 2013, nearly five years ago. Yet, when looking back on it feels so recent. I still feel the energy in those rooms of the Elmina Castle, peering out from the Door of No Return.
As Lydia Polgreen wrote in the New York Times, “For centuries, Africans walked through the infamous "door of no return" at Cape Coast castle directly into slave ships, never to set foot in their homelands again. These days, the portal of this massive fort so central to one of history's greatest crimes has a new name, hung on a sign leading back in from the roaring Atlantic Ocean: "The door of return."
Ghana, through whose ports millions of Africans passed on their way to plantations in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, wants its descendants to come back.”
That was written in 2005, eight years before I visited Elmina Castle. I wouldn’t exactly say that this would be a place fit for its decedents to return, but I can say that given the chance, everyone should visit this place and feel its walls that cry out still.
You will come away a changed person, more enlightened, despite what you may already know about its dark history. You will come away filled more with love than hate — a love that transcends all and dares to redefine our next generations.
It has been called the Journey of a Lifetime - and certainly in a strange way it was for me also.
For an estimated 12 million Africans, the Castle of Elmina housed the "Door Of No Return” — out of which they boarded a ship and never saw their families nor set foot in their homes again.
Many Americans can trace their ancestry back to this exact location, where their relatives survived a harrowing journey only to endure a life of slavery and oppression in their new world.
My mind went into a state of shock as we followed Nana (our guide) through the cells where these African men and women were held, waiting as despondent, tortured and helpless captives of Elmina Castle.
I took this journey with a good friend whose roots are firmly set in Accra, Charlotte Mensah. Also on this journey were two fellow Ghanaian acquaintances. For one, named Ekow Barnes, it was also his first time to Elmina.
Partly as a distraction from my "beyond the senses of sensitivity,” and an overwhelming urge to run escaping and fleeing from this tour, I brought along my camera. But after feeling some of the strangest, indescribable sensations of connection in some of the castle's rooms (and being unable to photograph for myself) then and there I decided to chronicle Ekow's visit instead.
So, hoisted safely behind my Nikon buddy, I took in this incredibly emotional history through my tear filled lens — one African-American's pilgrimage to another African man's spiritual homecoming.
This journey happened in 2013, nearly five years ago. Yet, when looking back on it feels so recent. I still feel the energy in those rooms of the Elmina Castle, peering out from the Door of No Return.
As Lydia Polgreen wrote in the New York Times, “For centuries, Africans walked through the infamous "door of no return" at Cape Coast castle directly into slave ships, never to set foot in their homelands again. These days, the portal of this massive fort so central to one of history's greatest crimes has a new name, hung on a sign leading back in from the roaring Atlantic Ocean: "The door of return."
Ghana, through whose ports millions of Africans passed on their way to plantations in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, wants its descendants to come back.”
That was written in 2005, eight years before I visited Elmina Castle. I wouldn’t exactly say that this would be a place fit for its decedents to return, but I can say that given the chance, everyone should visit this place and feel its walls that cry out still.
You will come away a changed person, more enlightened, despite what you may already know about its dark history. You will come away filled more with love than hate — a love that transcends all and dares to redefine our next generations.
