In last week�s column, I responded to a March 14 article in the Wall Street Journal, titled, "Tangled Roots: For African-Americans in Ghana, the Grass Isn�t Always Greener." Continuing my analysis of the motives of the article, the writer mentioned how Black people were not welcomed in Ghana and are not able to take government jobs.

I would like to give the writer a lesson in history. It was Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, who was educated at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, who met Black Americans and saw the tremendous potential we had to help move the African continent forward. Ghana was the first country that invited Black Americans to relocate there (i.e., Maya Angelou, Alice Windom, W.E.B. DuBois, George Padmore, etc.)

The list consists of many artists and writers who moved to Ghana in order to escape the racism of America and experience their cultural homeland. Many of these people were invited and embraced by the country. Just as many of the artists moved to Paris to be free to create without facing opposition, persecution and suffering because of the color of the skin. Today, Black Americans who suffer the same in America are looking to the African continent as a place to free them from the baggage of racism�the promised land.

Kwame Nkrumah�s vision was to get Africans in the Diaspora who had been taught well by the slave masters to run his society. Nkrumah felt that if he brought them home, they could eventually run a society that belonged to Black people. In my opinion, this article was designed to discourage instead of encourage Black Americans or Africans in the Diaspora to participate in the development of Africa at a time when our expertise is needed.

The writer cited how we pay more at the hospitals and when we visit the slave dungeons. When I moved to Ghana 10 years ago, virtually very few Ghanaians even went inside the Cape Coast slave dungeons or knew of its history. Now, because of the influence and attractions of Africans in the Diaspora, we have made it a place where school children and others come.

If those individuals are concerned about us being charged higher fees, then why don�t the same people seek donations throughout the world for the upkeep of these historical monuments? God has so blessed Ghana in the preservation of these tremendous slave dungeons that housed our people before they were shipped to America to be made into slaves.

Black people can visit this historical site just as the Jews do when they visit Auschwitz to witness the evidence of the Holocaust. This visibility and awareness were as a result of Black America�s pilgrimage to witness the remnants of this horrible atrocity, to teach their children a lesson of "never again."

This article is written at a time when the stock market is falling. People who have money are looking for places to invest their money. Financial projections on Africa in the last 10 years have said that good investments in Africa make a 30 percent return on average, which is better than any other spot in the world. The U.S. government and private sector invested billions of dollars in Russia when it changed from Communism to a market economy. Most of the money was lost, laundered and squandered. There is an opportunity in Africa not only to help this continent move forward, but an opportunity for investment. And one of the returns is the uplifting of a people who have been neglected by the West.

I am disappointed in such an article because it attempts to sabotage the interaction between Black Americans and Africans on the continent. It discourages repatriation, business investments and tourism. The potential for growth in Africa is unlimited. If these young Black minds, freshly molded from colleges and universities, would just invest some of their time and talents in Africa, we would see Africa�s truest potential.

FinalCall.com