African Americans and Sierra Leone’s ‘Years of Return’
I speak to a group of African Americans who are paving the way for members of the African diaspora to ‘return’ to their ancestral home of Sierra Leone.
This piece is a longer version of the original published for OkayAfrica.
‘Back-to-Africa’ 2.0
It is December 2022, and dozens of African Americans in green, white and blue attire sit under a tent on the grounds of the Sierra Leonean Presidential Palace complex waiting to receive their Sierra Leonean passports. One of the attendees repeatedly says, ‘I am home’ while signing a document.
The scenes are captured in a video, posted by 41-year-old African-American entrepreneur Dynast Amir, on his YouTube Channel, ‘Search for Uhuru’, where President Julius Maada Bio confers citizenship on the group because a DNA test they took shows they have roots here. In 2021, Sierra Leone became the first African nation to formally give people citizenship if they can prove they have ancestral ties to the country. To date, it is the only African country that offers this.
Maada Bio describes the moment as the “climax of a historic journey after months and years of searching for your ancestral roots.” He then says in Sierra Leonean Creole or Krio, “ ‘Una Kushe”, or “You all are welcome.” It is also the climax of a year-long celebration of the 230th anniversary of the nation’s capital, Freetown which was established by some natives, abolitionists and former slaves, to settle enslaved peoples from England, Nova Scotia, the US, and later Jamaica.
The attendees are here because of Amir’s tourism heritage company, Danfo, which organises trips to Sierra Leone, Benin, Senegal, Nigeria and Tanzania. The former salesman from Texas and California, tells me this began in 2011 when a friend recommended he holiday in Tanzania. “At the time, I saw a nightclub in Santa Monica called Zanzibar, so that was confirmation. When I made it in the country, it hit me that ‘I’m here’ in Africa..it was very rewarding,” he tells OkayAfrica.
Leaving the airport, he faced questions that set him off on a new journey. “Phone sellers and taxi people come up to me and start speaking in Swahili. I tell them I don’t understand. They ask me if I am Ghanaian or South African and then ask about my ethnicity. I keep telling them I’m Black American, and they’re like ‘No, where are you from?’ At the time, I didn’t know because we were disconnected from that due to the slave trade. So that led to ‘In Search of Uhuru’ because, after that, I wanted to learn more. Uhuru means freedom in Swahili, I wanted my freedom by finding my African roots”, Amir explains.
He also says he was inspired to take a DNA test after actor Isaiah Washington traced his maternal lineage to the Mende of Sierra Leone in 2005. He became the first Black person to obtain African citizenship through DNA testing.
Thanks to the popularity of DNA testing, hundreds of thousands of Black people in the diaspora have filled some gaps in the knowledge of their past, by discovering their links to African ethnic groups or present-day nation-states, after slavery severed those ties. Dr Gina Paige is the co-founder of African Ancestry, a Black-owned DNA company that pioneered this DNA testing technology when it launched in 2003 and has traced the maternal and paternal roots of notable figures to Sierra Leone, like civil rights activists Jesse Jackson, Dr Martin Luther King III, pan-African scholar Julius Garvey, historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., actress Regina King and the late actors Chadwick Boseman and Michael K. Williams.
Paige says longstanding mistrust of scientific institutions in the Black community has made her work challenging. “Today Black Americans are still contending with the (historical) misuse of our genetic information, but African Ancestry did not know that we would reconnect Africa and the diaspora (so) uniquely.”
While African Ancestry says it did not play a role in lobbying the Sierra Leonean government for its customers to have a pathway to citizenship, Paige explains it’s a significant part of the company’s family reunion tours. “There are growing sentiments Black people don’t feel safe or valued in the US, so to get citizenship somewhere else and be accepted where people want you home, it’s that basic human kindness that they can experience and also help the growth of the country. When someone gets their test results, one of the first things they say is they want to go home and put their feet on the land. Sometimes it’s the reason why people take our tests,” Paige explains.
“ You see the impact of them standing on Bunce Island (a decaying former slave port on Bunce Island, where thousands of people were trafficked to the US and Caribbean islands like Jamaica) with the understanding of where their ancestor was most likely taken from. It’s another place of reverence, and we make sure we underscore how one should be in that space.”
And then there is getting a ‘native’ name from their ancestral communities, which Paige says is ‘an act of resistance’. One instance is when traveller Shazel Muhammad-Neain is given a name whose meaning is similar to the nickname her family calls her, and as the Mende chief describes what the name means, everyone in the travel group is astounded.
Paige explains that diasporans have preconceived notions and expectations that are not always accurate, and she says that while the groups staying in Freetown are in the best hotels and sometimes eat food that is familiar to them, there are opportunities for them to push their understanding of life on the ground. Locals are very receptive and excited when her travel groups visit as they get first-hand insight into the experiences and histories of Black people outside the continent. “It’s not just one-sided, it’s presenting an opportunity to the people in the places to learn about us. There’s been 400 years of misinformation and negative stereotypes are minimised by our work on both sides.
Sierra Leone’s ‘Path of Return’
These trips remind of Sierra Leone’s larger historical role in the ‘Back to Africa movement’ which includes the repatriation of former enslaved Africans in and from 1787, as well as the struggle for freedom in the 19th-century Amistad case. Closer to modern times, the 2014 documentary, ‘They Are We’ explores how centuries-old songs reunited an Afro-Cuban community and the Banta people of Sierra Leone.
Thirty-three-year-old local historian Francis Momoh is passionate about Sierra Leone’s links to the larger diaspora. Last year, he hosted a US Congressional Delegation at Bunce Island. He tells OkayAfrica, “ Sierra Leone’s role in the making of Africa and the wider Atlantic World has always been prominent. People only know Sierra Leone, via the lens of the Hollywood movie “Blood Diamonds” and a civil war that ended in 2002. If the rich cultures and history of our beloved country are taken seriously, we can start redirecting our effort to a destination that benefits us, nationally and internationally.”
Ghana’s 2019 ‘Year of Return’ initiative which commemorated 400 years since the first recorded landing of enslaved Africans in Jamestown, Virginia is an example of what that could look like. But critics like Shamirah Ibrahim argue these well-intentioned initiatives come with their own set of challenges that include the unintended economic impact on native Ghanaians. When I ask Francis if similar concerns could play out should Sierra Leone launch a similar programme in the future, he says “Sierra Leone prioritises the cultural and emotive reasons, but all other benefits, including economic growth, will follow accordingly. The government’s efforts open avenues for collaboration and knowledge.”
The Gullah Connection
Forty-five-year-old Mansa Foday Ajamu Mansaray and his wife Kenya Malinke, have been heavily involved in this since they made Sierra Leone their home in 2013. This includes lobbying for other diasporans to become citizens. They’re from the Gullah Geechee, an African American community that preserved their African linguistic and cultural heritage despite slavery. Their ties with Sierra Leone run deep, as former president Joseph Saidu Momoh would learn on a visit to South Carolina in 1988. Thousands of enslaved Sierra Leoneans were trafficked to South Carolina and Georgia because of their knowledge of rice farming. The visit and subsequent Gullah Geechee homecoming to Sierra Leone was portrayed in the PBS documentary, ‘Family Across the Sea’.
“The African diaspora’s strongest connection to Sierra Leone is the Gullah Geechee people and Freetown is the capital, the birthplace of pan-Africanism on the continent. It’s the first place where repatriated people returned for the purpose of freedom,” Mansaray tells OkayAfrica. “That’s why I knew I had to come here as a pan-African. This was a place I felt was my home.”
Mansaray, who was raised between Pennsylvania and South Carolina, says his mother kept alive knowledge of the family’s Mandinka heritage. “We always knew. It’s not something I am discovering from a DNA test. My family maintained our Mandinka origins which have been verified through genealogy.” His adopted name Mansa, a title reserved for emperors of the ancient Malian empire corroborates his role as a paramount chief for the Gullah Geechee community in Sierra Leone, and as an advisor to Black diasporans who want to settle in Sierra Leone. While there are no official figures on how many have done this, Mansaray says at least 400 people have made the move so far.
The husband-and-wife team has built the cultural heritage-based project, the Gullah Nation of North America in Louisiana, South Carolina and Sierra Leone, which Mansaray says is to “unify and empower Gullah Geechee people with the knowledge of our true culture. Under the Gullah Leone project, we have advocated for DNA testers and Gullah Geechee people who may not be linked by blood to Sierra Leone.”
Kenya Malinke, who is from Chicago and Milwaukee and is the president of their organisation, the Black Star Network, tells me she met Mansa when she worked in radio in the US. “I first met Mansa when he was hosting a Sierra Leonean on a tour in the US, and I followed him. I thought it was amazing to see an American brother building practical relationships with continental Africans. The radio network (I worked for) had a chance to interview this guest after that, which was my introduction to Sierra Leone and the Black Star Network International, where I am now its president after I came to Sierra Leone.”
Despite this, they don’t shy away from how challenging decades-long economic stagnation and political instability are hindering Sierra Leone, and why diasporans need to be aware of those issues stemming from colonialism and political strife. “There are substandard, structural issues in the country, but having grown up in the hood, and experiencing the rural South, adapting wasn’t too difficult for me. There are serious political and economic struggles but they’re not different from those in other African countries. Sierra Leone could do a lot better. More young people and women need to be trained in leadership. They have the biggest incentives and the most to gain”, Mansaray explains. Kenya Malinke says, “Diasporans will find it difficult to gain employment here because most jobs are in street trading, so you might have to create opportunities for yourself and others to benefit from.”
The pair have developed several development programs in water, hygiene and agriculture. They launched the ‘Fight Ebola campaign’ and galvanised a response team after the mudslide disaster at SugarLoaf mountain on August 14 2017, which killed more than a thousand people.
Mansaray says he’s sometimes struggled with living in Freetown, but accepts he has a place there. “Being away from home and everything I’d ever known. Coming out here on a whim came with consequences such as feelings of guilt, and sometimes feelings of regret. Culturally, I would say there are values or expectations of differences in normal, social, and economic engagement in the country. It has a rich cultural diversity which is hard to keep up with. I have always been embraced warmly, especially when they (the locals) understand I am their brother and that our people were taken during slavery. They know we have a shared history and destiny in terms of what happened to us all.”
