Black Americans undergo cleansing from ‘slavery stigma’ in Africa
by Chika Oduah | July 15, 2013 at 2:20 PM

It took a trip to Africa to change 10 lives forever.

Six months after Irene Toland, Sidney Davis, Robin Almeida and Pamela Ramsay joined a group traveling to Africa, the effects of that trip still have not worn off.

This was not your typical African safari, point at the monkeys and “feed the children” sort of gig. For these 10 African-Americans, the journey to the West African country of Nigeria was nothing less than a spiritual, cultural pilgrimage.

In Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the world, they underwent a ritual cleansing from what they call the stigma of slavery. A local king washed their hands and feet as part of the cleansing.

Rituals and royalty

“They woke us up very early, we had no idea what we were doing,” says 53-year-old Robin Almeida. She describes the whole ordeal as an out-of-body experience, and says she feels a great privilege to have been part of the group.

The king, Eze Chukwuemeka Eri of a town called Aguleri in southeastern Nigeria, conducted the ritual ceremony following Igbo traditional rites. Afterwards, he pronounced the visiting African-Americans as princes and princesses of the royal house, bestowing them with Igbo names. Almeida was given the Igbo name Princess Ogechi Eri.

The pilgrimage was part of the inaugural Ebo Landing Project , a 2012 initiative of Nigerian historian and scholar, Catherine Acholonu. Acholonu, a former Fulbright Scholar who also served under the administration of Nigeria’s two-time president Olusegun Obasanjo, says the Ebo Landing Project is needed to help African-American break ties with their enslaved past and give them a sense of honor.

“We want to build a generation of African-Americans who have royalty,” says Acholunu.

Blacks on the bad side of the numbers

She claims African-Americans are suffering. For her, the circulating statistics and trends – like the ones that describe African-Americans as less likely to graduate from a university, more likely to have a child outside of marriage, more likely to experience nutrition related illness – is proof of a societal epidemic.

“The African-American condition comes from the fact that they’ve been demeaned and denigrated,” Acholonu says. “They feel like second-hand citizens.”

Almeida agrees.

“In a sense we are still slaves here [in the U.S.]; it’s just covered up,” she says. “You don’t see it. 90% of the black men in this community are in jail.”

For her, the 2012 trip – her first ever to Africa – instilled a sense of self-respect and dignity.

After the trip, Massachusetts-resident Irene Toland returned to her job as a beauty advisor at a local Walgreens store. She says she is a changed person with a newfound “sense of peace.” The New Hampshire native said she rarely saw African-Americans in her childhood, outside of her family. Her father told her they come from Eastern European Jews, but she felt a cultural disconnect and lack of identity.

“…I just didn’t know who I was, where I really belong,” says the 79-year-old.

This was not her first time in Africa. She’d been to Kenya on a tour, but for her, the pilgrimage to Nigeria was like nothing she had ever experienced. Now, she’s encouraging other African-Americans to participate in the 2013 trip, but admits that getting participants to go to Africa to connect with their ancestral past may be a challenge.

“There’s a lot of shame and there’s a lot of hurt,” Toland explains. “That’s why I’m trying to tell them to know about their history.”

“We black people have been robbed of that history and I don’t know why they are so ashamed of Africa.”


http://thegrio.com/2013/07/15/black-americans-undergo-cleansing-from-slavery-stigma-in-africa/#s:participants-in-aguleri

Prof Acholonu was a senior special advisor to Obasanjo and a first-rate Igbocentric lady. Very smart, intelligent historian. She is heavily involved in the Igbo-Jew project as well.

More:

Prof. (Mrs) Catherine Obianuju Acholonu (born 26 Oct 1951, Orlu, Nigeria) is a Nigerian writer, researcher and former lecturer on African Cultural and Gender Studies. She is the former Senior Special Adviser (SSA) to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Arts and Culture, and foundation member of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA).
Contents

Biography

Catherine Acholonu was born in Orlu to the family of Chief Lazarus Olumba. She attended secondary schools in Orlu before becoming the first African woman to gain a master's degree (1977) and a Ph.D. (1987) from the University of Düsseldorf, Germany.[1] She taught at Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri, commencing 1978.

Acholonu is the author of over 16 books, many of which are used in secondary schools and universities in Nigeria, and in African Studies Departments in USA and Europe. Her works and projects have enjoyed the collaboration and the support of United States Information Service (USIS), the British Council, the Rockefeller Foundation and in 1989 she was invited to tour educational institutions in USA, lecturing on her works under the United States International Visitor’s Program. In 1990 Catherine Acholonu was honored with the Fulbright Scholar in Residency award by the US government, during which she lectured at four colleges of the Westchester Consortium for International studies, NY, USA.

Part of her work has taken her into the wider sphere of sustainable development. In 1986 she was the only Nigerian, and one of only two Africans, to participate in the United Nations Expert Group Meeting on “Women, Population and Sustainable Development: the Road to Rio, Cairo and Beijing”, which was organized jointly by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Division for the Advancement of Women, and the Division for Sustainable Development. This took place in the Dominican Republic, and focused on the mainstreaming of gender into the Plans of Action of the UN world conferences of Rio, Beijing and Cairo. Prof Acholonu holds several awards from home and abroad.

From 1999 to 2002, she was the Special Adviser on Arts and Culture to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a post she resigned from to seek election, along with a number of other writers who felt their inclusion in Nigerian politics would for the good. However, she lost the contest for the Orlu senatorial district seat of Imo State, and drew attention to irregularities and rigging.

She was recently appointed African Renaissance Ambassador by the African Renaissance Conference with head quarters in the Republic of Benin, and Nigeria’s sole representative at the global Forum of Arts and Culture for the Implementation of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNFAC). She is listed in the International Who’s Who of World Leadership, USA; the African Women Writers’ Who’s Who; the Top 500 Women in Nigeria; Who’s Who in Nigeria; and the International Authors and Writers Who’s Who, published in Cambridge, UK.

Acholonu is the Director of the Catherine Acholonu Research Center, Abuja (CARC). The center, based in Abuja, is pioneering research into Africa's pre-history, stone inscriptions, cave art, and linguistic analyses of ancient symbols and communication mediums from the continent. She argues that Nigerian rock-art inscriptions known as Ikom Monoliths prove that "Sub-Saharan African Blacks possessed an organized system of writing before 2000 B.C." and that she and her assistants are able to translate these.[2] In her book They Lived Before Adam: Prehistoric Origins of the Igbo The Never-Been-Ruled she argues that Igbo oral tradition is consistent with scientific research into the origins of humanity. Speaking at the Harlem Book Fair, Acholonu summarised the content of her argument in the book as follows:

Sidney Davis · Follow · Top Commenter · Boston, Massachusetts
First some errata,
1. " Irene Toland.... Her father told her they come from Eastern European Jews, but she felt a cultural disconnect and lack of identity." It was not "Eastern European Jews" but "Ethiopian Jews" that is a part of our family oral and historical tradition. Irene Toland is my mother.

2. "“We black people have been robbed of that history and I don’t know why they are so ashamed of Africa.” Should not be understood to mean that black people in America are ashamed of Africa. She was referring to Nigeria in particular.

Nigeria probably has as much a "stigma" from colonialism as we do from slavery. What many of us have experienced were negative reactions about our coming to Nigeria and even today Nigeria is not the country of choice if at all for African Americans traveling to Africa, especially for the first time and the perceptions African Americans have of Nigerians themselves are also negative. Of all the areas and countries on the African continent, Nigeria is the LEAST known, most misunderstood and researched. So there is a wide knowledge and culture gap not only between African Americans and Nigerian studies, but the world and Nigerian studies. What she discovered as well as all who were a part of this pilgrimage was the richness and the great antiquity of Igbo culture that the majority of African Americans do not know about, which is ironic considering that the majority of captive Africans came from the Bight of Biafra, Igboland.

================================

Deborah Martin · Top Commenter
I would love to do something like this. I have a 15 year old I'd love to bring to this also. Our community needs a healing.

===================================

Sidney Davis · Follow · Top Commenter · Boston, Massachusetts
@ Deborah Martin, like us at Ebo Landing Project Ancestral Repatriation.
==============================================================================


Mary Arthur · Grambling State University
No, I understand what Rita is saying. I am happy that the people who took this trip felt they had a breakthrough; however, my parents and community (I assume like Rita's) taught and modeled for us who we are and thereby instilled a level of pride in us that we never had negative feelings about ourselves that we had to wash off ---either literally or metaphorically.

===================================================================

Sidney Davis · Follow · Top Commenter · Boston, Massachusetts
@ though it is a strong emotional experience for many, it has nothing to do with pride or negative feelings. It has to do with cosmic and spiritual forces that impact on experience. Regardless of how we feel or what we know, we cannot deny the cosmological, spiritual consequences of our experience.

===================================================================


Mary Arthur · Grambling State University
We were taught the problem was theirs, not ours! And, yes, you would have to work harder to overcome the obstacles constructed by them, but you could do it. And, we did!
Reply · 1 · Like · Follow Post · July 18 at 2:40am
=======================================================================
Rita Ogburn-Mccall · Top Commenter · Niskayuna, New York
Wow.. all that? I am so grateful for strong parents. No need for washing something that I never owned.
Reply · 1 · Like · Follow Post · July 15 at 4:04pm
========================================================
Sidney Davis · Follow · Top Commenter · Boston, Massachusetts
I am sure you did not mean what you sound like. I think I can say not only are the participants from strong parents and strong, loving and nurturing homes, but among us were Ifa Priests and an a priestess, five academicians, two with PhDs and one PhD candidate. It is easy to be critical of something of which much is little known. One must understand African cosmology and spirituality as it relates to "slavery" to understand the significance of the "cleansing" we experienced.
Reply · Like · July 16 at 8:13pm

Yelonda Brown · Ivy Tech Community College
Thank you all for sharing this with me.PEACE.
Reply · 1 · Like · Follow Post · July 15 at 5:41pm
=============================================
Deborah Martin · Top Commenter
This is interesting. I'd like to go and take my 15 year old with me. I'd like to make a way for others to come and do this, in particular those kids who like to go about shooting up the place. Somehow I'll find a way to do this.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · July 16 at 11:07pm
=================================================
Lebogang Emmy-Lee Maseko · University of Johannesburg
Great article,I hope you find some peace.With lots of love from South Africa.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · July 18 at 7:13pm
=================================================
Mary Cuthbertson · Charlotte, North Carolina
This is so interesting.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · July 16 at 5:03am
===========================================
Veronika Amaechi · Follow · Top Commenter
there is more to come, I hope...
Reply · Like · Follow Post · July 16 at 12:13pm

Cleansed?

careytommy: Cleansed?

From right: African American Sidney Davis (first commenter on post two), Prof Catherine Acholonu and an unidentified Igbo clergyman in a historical meeting in Igboland recently

Sidney is also pictured in his bowler hat right at the center back of the first picture in the opening post

Ironically, the descendants of Igbo slave sellers are not cleansing themselves of the iniquity committed by their ancestors against fellow Igbo people.

Nightshift: Ironically, the descendants of Igbo slave sellers are not cleansing themselves of the iniquity committed by their ancestors against fellow Igbo people.

Yeah! Your Yoruba ancestors did not engage in slave trading. That is why Ajayi Crowther and other Yoruba slave returnees are no longer Yoruba.

docokwy:

Yeah! Your Yoruba ancestors did not engage in slave trading. That is why Ajayi Crowther and other Yoruba slave returnees are no longer Yoruba.

Dude, i am not from the ethnic group you've mentioned.

Nightshift: Dude, i am not from the ethnic group you've mentioned.

Yeah!!! If you are from the North, your ancestors did not engage in the trans-saharan slave trade. That is why the blacks of the Arab world are no longer descendants of black African slaves from the Sahel/Sahara (northern Nigeria)
If you are from the south (ex Igbo or Yoruba,) your ancestors at the slave ports in Calabar,Ibeno, and Ijawland (Riv, Bay, Del states) did not engage in slave trade. And if you are Igbo, your own ancestors also were involved in the slave trade. Tell me more, dude.

docokwy:

Yeah!!! If you are from the North, your ancestors did not engage in the trans-saharan slave trade. That is why the blacks of the Arab world are no longer descendants of black African slaves from the Sahel/Sahara (northern Nigeria)
If you are from the south (ex Igbo Yoruba,) your ancestors at the slave ports in Calabar Rivers and Ijawland did not engage in slave trade. Tell me more, dude.

For clarification, i meant that the descendants of African slave sellers ought also go for cleansing if descendants of former African slaves, who were never enslaved are coming to Africa for " cleansing". Wasn't Trans - Atlantic slave trade a sin against God and humanity?

Nightshift: For clarification, i meant that the descendants of African slave sellers ought also go for cleansing if descendants of former African slaves, who were never enslaved are coming to Africa for " cleansing". Wasn't Trans - Atlantic slave trade against God and humanity?

Have you done your own cleansing?

In my opinion, African Americans need not come to Africa for whatever cleansing since Africans were equally guilty of selling their forefathers.
It's a game of the mind for those who think that coming to Africa for cleansing will in anyway alter their inner feelings about slavery in America and its African root.

Nightshift: In my opinion, African Americans need not come to Africa for whatever cleansing since Africans were equally guilty of selling their forefathers.
It's a game of the mind for those who think that coming to Africa for cleansing will in anyway alter their inner feelings about slavery in America and its African root.

You could read from their (AAs) own responses on post two that their opinions are divided on the issue. It is a matter of choice. For practical purposes, it is a useless venture, but for psychological, cultural and sentimental purposes, it is worth the exercise.

BTW, many of them are also doing DNA analysis to ascertain their African ancestories. Is that also useless?

docokwy:

Have you done your own cleansing?

What we as Africans need is soul searching; asking ourselves hard questions about the connection of the slave trade with the current social- political dispensation on the continent.
Is stealing African's wealth for Western banks not a form of another trans-Atlantic enslavement?

Kudos to this great scholar. If she gets all the necessary support, Nigeria will soon become a major tourist destination. It's not only Israel and Saui Arabia that are worth visiting for religious purposes.

Nightshift: What we as Africans need is soul searching; asking ourselves hard questions about the connection of the slave trade with the current social- political dispensation on the continent.
Is stealing African's wealth for Western banks not a form of another trans-Atlantic enslavement?

If there is an evil consequence of slave trade, it should [b]also [/b]go to the slave buyers, not just the slave sellers; yes, no?

Nightshift: Ironically, the descendants of Igbo slave sellers are not cleansing themselves of the iniquity committed by their ancestors against fellow Igbo people.

LOL...don't mind the hypocrisy of the Igbo man, its all about the US dollar bills

Hmmmm.

No amount of hot water cleansing is going to remove 500 years worth of bullshit but hey if help one to move on..... I hear ya!

Mrs.Chima:
Hmmmm.

No amount of hot water cleansing is going to remove 500 years worth of bullshit but hey if help one to move on..... I hear ya!

^^^

if they need to be cleansed let them to somalia, we shall clense their slave mentality, they will go on a tour of southern somalia where they will work in the fields of somalia. after all you dont know where u going unless u know where u come from

somalia11: if they need to be cleansed let them to somalia, we shall clense their slave mentality, they will go on a tour of southern somalia where they will work in the fields of somalia. after all you dont know where u going unless u know where u come from

oh shut up there

Nightshift: In my opinion, African Americans need not come to Africa for whatever cleansing since Africans were equally guilty of selling their forefathers. It's a game of the mind for those who think that coming to Africa for cleansing will in anyway alter their inner feelings about slavery in America and its African root.

agreed.

docokwy:

Yeah!!! If you are from the North, your ancestors did not engage in the trans-saharan slave trade. That is why the blacks of the Arab world are no longer descendants of black African slaves from the Sahel/Sahara (northern Nigeria)

If you are from the south (ex Igbo or Yoruba,) your ancestors at the slave ports in Calabar,Ibeno, and Ijawland (Riv, Bay, Del states) did not engage in slave trade. And if you are Igbo, your own ancestors also were involved in the slave trade. Tell me more, dude.

lol EXCELLENT POINT!
btw i love the sarcasm!

ijaw citizen: LOL...don't mind the hypocrisy of the Igbo man, its all about the US dollar bills

lol

that is why i am like "i'll pass".

papa africa? lmao



africa is used by u ugly mofos, it has no meaning in somalia, ethiopia or north africa


keep the aids, to urself

somalia needs to leave african union before we get aids

somalia11: papa africa? lmao



africa is used by u ugly mofos, it has no meaning in somalia, ethiopia or [b] north africa


keep the aids, to urself

somalia needs to leave african union before we get aids

lmaoo indeed,aabeg park well,i thought u said u are going,u smell terribly,pls open ur mouth leme pee inside

lmaooo@ugly mofos,a somali calling us ugly?? This is a taboo u gus look like starving rode monkeys,loool! The last time i checked,aids is present in every continent and even ur fellow apes got aids as well. Loool! @ the bolded,ethiopia in the au is a million times better than ur zoo, (and they are all happy about that,they even mock y'all and call u guys arabian serving boy because u pigs are in the arab league,funny no arabian troop steped foot in ur zoo during the war ) u need to see the way u'll are look down upon,whites open thread about how disgusting ur zoo is, it's funny u always got northafrica involve,to be sincere they prefer a westafrican anyday,anytime to y'all moda'fvckers without future,poor parasitic pigs that begs every westafrica country for food the first lady of nigeria sent food to ur zoo some couple of weeks ago,loool! U need to see how ur president was bowing for her,the masses where all happy,dancing and singing for her hahahah (maybe they see her as their saviour and lord) funny monkeys


anytime u post,u end up making a mockery of ur fast growing aids infested land,the rate of hiv infection is high compared with a decade ago! May y'll ugly parasite be wiped out of this precious earth,every human hate ur kind and see y'all as inferiors,monkeys that can't even feed themselves! Hahahahahahahahahha

Mrs.Chima:
Hmmmm.

No amount of hot water cleansing is going to remove 500 years worth of bullshit but hey if help one to move on..... I hear ya!

madam chima how ya did doing? How husbi?

NONE of my family or friends are doing this... but I guess this applies to the ten? folks that went lol

*Kails*:


^^^

Hey sis! Muuuuuah!

I am on penis strike! Join me.

These negroes are simply lost souls because were never slaves and this a actually a slap in the face of their ancestors who fought hard to free them from slavery.

Adamskuty: madam chima how ya did doing? How husbi?

We are good.

H-Star89:
NONE of my family or friends are doing this... but I guess this applies to the ten? folks that went lol

They were bamboozled and hoodwinked.