Some Black Americans have chosen to move to Africa to embrace their heritage and ancestral roots after experiencing racism, violence and stereotyping in the United States.
A village in Tanzania. ceasrgp. CC BY-SA 2.0
The Back-to-Africa movement was initially started to encourage those of African ancestry to travel back to Africa where their ancestors once lived. Even though many are unsure of the movement’s founder, many in the U.S. attribute it to Marcus Garvey, who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914 in New York City’s Harlem district. He encouraged many Black people to seek social equality even if it meant moving to Africa through “self-emancipation.”
However, the Back-to-Africa movement can be traced even further back to the 19th century and the establishment of the American Colonization Society The predominantly-White group, founded by Robert Finley in 1817, shipped up to 12,000 freed slaves and freeborn Black Americans to Liberia. Historians’ views on the American Colonization Society’s work remain split; some view it as an early group dedicated to Black Americans’ freedom while others see it as nothing more than an attempt to remove Black people from the United States. Either way, the group was unpopular among the African American community, and should not be confused with more recent Back-to-Africa movements.
Painting of Marcus Garvey. David Drissel. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
Many African Americans have more recently picked up the Back-to-Africa movement to help strengthen Black identity. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X both made visits to Ghana in order to reconnect with their heritage.
Obadele Kambon is a recent example of the modern Back-to-Africa movement. Kambon was living in Chicago in 2007 when he was wrongfully accused of possessing a loaded firearm illegally in his car. In reality, he had an unloaded, licensed gun. The fear of mistreatment and wrongful convictions, sometimes even leading to death, was a main influence in Kambon’s decision to move to Ghana in 2008.He said his participation in the Back-to-Africa movement made him realize what it “feels like to be a White person in America, just to be able to live without worrying that something is going to happen to you.”
Many of those who have moved to Africa from the United States fear that “nothing can fix [racism].” Africa holds the potential to reconnect people with their roots while offering them a life less affected by racism and violence. 71% of African Americans in the United States have said that they have experienced discrimination in some form. For many African Americans, heading abroad frees them from the need to prove themselves to be more than their skin color.
2019 was marked by Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo as the “Year of Return.” It coincided with the 400th anniversary of what is believed to be the first enslaved Africans arriving in the United States. Last year, Ghana rewarded over 100 citizenships to Black individuals from the Americas as a part of its “Year of Return” initiative. The campaign brought over 500,000 visitors to the region—and some of them have decided to stay.
Eva Ashbaugh
is a Political Science and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies double major at the University of Pittsburgh. As a political science major concentrating on International Relations, she is passionate about human rights, foreign policy, and fighting for equality. She hopes to one day travel and help educate people to make the world a better place.