July 2013

25 years ago, I hovered in the narrow opening of the Door of No Return gazing out to sea. I tried to imagine the horrors that lay ahead for shiploads of Africans bound for the New World. Situated on Goree Island, just 3 km off the coast of Dakar, Senegal, The Maison des Esclaves served as the point of final transport for the Atlantic Slave Trade. With President Obama’s visit to the House of Slaves in June, Goree Island has once again come to the attention of the world. When I stood in that doorway on my first trip to Africa, I never dreamed that one day we would have a black President in the U.S, that one day I would have a biracial son, or that one day I would have the honor of teaching the work of Toni Morrison. Morrison’s haunting novel Beloved dedicated to “sixty million and more,” has given the world a more profound sense of the atrocities of slavery than most history books could ever convey. Read More »