Categories: William “Tony” Rogers,
At least 10 million Africans were enslaved and transported to Europe and the Americas between the 15th and 19th centuries. Portuguese, Dutch, English, Spanish and French ships ruled the sea and developed the Atlantic slave trade, the transatlantic slave trade, and the Euro-American slave trade.
Africans not only built the economic foundation that allowed America to become the most powerful country in the world, but they also helped build the economies of every European power that benefited from free African slave labor.
A great number of the 10 million African slaves who were shipped to America came through Goree Island in Senegal and The Cape Coast Castle in Ghana. Goree Island and Cape Coast Castle were two of the largest slave-trading Centers on the African coast during the four centuries of African slave trading.
The African Diaspora is a sleeping giant. African and Caribbean Americas alone spend over one trillion dollars a year for goods and services, even during COVID. It would be difficult to calculate the amount of money the global African Diaspora spends on goods and services in one year.
Thanks to the transatlantic slave trade industry, the African Diaspora is truly a powerful sleeping giant. This was a subtheme at the 2025 Cultural Oneness Festival in Northern Ghana this past December. The Harlem Tourism Board in partnership with The Taste of Afrika co-sponsor this annual event.
The social programing of the African Diaspora by their colonizers over the past 625 years has been very effective in keeping the African diaspora divided. In 2019 Ghana developed a home coming marketing initiative to encourage members of the African diaspora to come home.
Many African and Caribbean Americans travel to Ghana, for pleasure and to explore business opportunities. Some even applied for dual citizenship and purchased property. My work in Northern Ghana has allowed me to become a chief and a landowner, Manwule Wura is my Ghanaian name.
There are several Africans who were born in America that are now living and operating businesses in Northern Ghana. I have been adopted by a country; I no longer have to wonder where I fit in with the growing Pan-Africanism movement.
Africans thoughout the world are beginning to recognize who they are and not feeling uncomfortable in calling themselves Africans. Persons with Chinese ancestry born in America, who have never been to China still consider themselves to be Chinese.
The sleeping giant will begin to awaken when Africans throughout the world begin to identify themselves as Africans. Don’t believe his-story that Africa does not want you. I am an example of the truth.
Africa is changing the United States of Africa is again becoming a real conversation among African countries. It’s also true that Africa will never be truly free until the sleeping giant is awakened.
The success of the 2025 Cultural Oneness Festival is proof that the awakening is starting to happen. The 2026 Cultural Oneness Festival will be even bigger.
