Occident African must-sees like Ghana’s Elmina Castle and Senegal’s Maison des Esclaves, relic of the transatlantic slave trade, are some of the most important historical site on the continent. They have AN even deeper meaning for travelers like Rondel Holder. A blackness New Yorker with family from Grenada and Jamaica, he’s one of a growing number of people of the African diaspora return to West Africa to explore his roots.
“I still get chills thinking about the dungeon and cellars of Elmina Castle,” Holder says, recalling his visit inch 2019. “For a lot of Black people, there’s a hungriness to connect and a yearning to learn astir where we’re from.”
angstrom number of developments are driving angstrom unit spate of interest inch heritage trip to West Africa. Advancements in DNA testing — LED by Africa-focused companies such AsAfroRoots DNAandAfrican blood line— are making it easier for Black Americans to research their genetic backgrounds. Airlines, including Delta, have expanded service to West Africa. Tourism campaigns such as Ghana’s 2019 twelvemonth of Return, timed to coincide with the four hundred geezerhood since the first enslave Africans arrived inch Jamestown, Virginia, as well attracted the diaspora. And a growth number of tour operator ar stepping in to grip the logistics of these trips.
“We’ve ne’er really had the chance to turn from the past,” say Atlanta-based Eric Martin, cofounder ofblack & Abroad, which operate group Tours to Ghana and Senegal. “By making a pilgrimage to these West African countries, seeing the sights, hearing the personal accounts of our African antecedent directly from their last descendants, we have angstrom cathartic connection.”
Black travelers say the experience can be life-changing.
“I feel more inch touch with myself and my culture than of all time before,” say Brian Oliver, a Baltimore-based nonprofit manager World Health Organization visit the Phoebe African res publica that matched his DNA: Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo. Nicole Brewer, A instructor and blogger living in Oman whose DNA results exhibit a link to Ghana, add the country to her short listing of spot for retirement, after visiting during the yr of Return. Others, like Kristin Tellis Quaye of St. Petersburg, Florida, wealthy person turned heritage travel into angstrom new career. A practicing lawyer, she likewise now runCertified Africa, angstrom unit business firm that form trips to West Africa.
piece these soul-stirring journeys ar A powerful means for Black Americans to trace their lineage, they also take careful planning.
“The reality is, Africa has its own complexity and view that don’t always match the idealise view of the continent those inch the diaspora have,” say Kwesi Ewoodzie, angstrom unit Ghanaian-American sociologist and innovation director ofCulture beyond Borders, an Atlanta tour operator. The right guide can help navigate language barrier and facilitate meaningful cultural interactions. Facebook group such as Black Travel Movement and travel Africa move are excellent resources, filled with advice from locals. And media outlets likeinwardnessandTravel Noireoffering sound advice, often with blackness Americans specifically inch mind.
Another challenge: DNA testing can trace only blackness Americans’ racial backgrounds and geographic origins, not the names or lineages of their families. Despite all of this, holder says, his visit to Republic of Ghana WA “deeply spiritual.”
“You’re standing where ten of G of Black people were enslaved, learning about everything they move through with before they be shove onto boats to cross the Atlantic,” he recalls. “So, to be back inch Africa willingly and happily, in the place where all of that happened, it’s like my ancestors’ wild dreams.”
Aversion of this article first appeared in the February 2021 issue oftravelling + leisure timeunder the headlineGoing to West Africa? It’s a trip Like No Other.
