The Door of No Return: A Spiritual Pilgrimage for Africans in America

The Door of No Return: A Spiritual Pilgrimage for Africans in America
ISBN-10
0738823635
ISBN-13
9780738823638
Series
The Door of No Return
Category
History
Pages
252
Language
English
Published
2000
Publisher
Xlibris Corporation
Author
Mary A. Flowers

Description

Pope John Paul stood at this door and apologized to millions of Africans in diaspora for the role that the Catholic church played in facilitating the African slave trade. Nelson Mandela huddled in a small cell designed for the most recalcitrant slaves and emerged 20 minutes later visibly shaken. President Clinton, Hilary and Chelsea Clinton and a large delegation of the Black Caucus visited this place where the President stopped short of apologizing to African-Americans for the pain that slavery inflicted upon them. Other African-American dignitaries have journeyed to this sacred place and left scathing indictments of anger or wrenching words of profound sorrow: Mohammed Ali, Dick Gregory, Jessie Jackson, Rev Al Sharpton, and hundreds of others. “The Door Of No Return” is the door of the slave house on Goree Island located in Senegal (west Africa) where millions of African slaves looked back to get their last glimpse of “The Motherland” before being loaded onto slave ships headed to America. They were then stacked human length to human length onto European ships and sold to the Americas and Carribean Islands to work as free laborers making the western world the great civilization that it is today. Robbed of all ancestral ties, Africans in America were treated like chattel and were housed on this small island of Goree where they were subjected to deplorable conditions and sold to America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. These African slaves were sold to one of the greatest powers of the western world which was built on the backs of the slave. These contradictions of freedom built on the backs of slaves still haunt privileged American and the heirs of the slaves whose ancestors were sacrificed to make this nation great. Misdirected anger in the African-American community has led to a surge of Black on Black crime, gang warfare, drug addiction, massive imprisonment of Africa-American males, tremendous rise in the incidence of AIDS, and infectious self loathing. It is this very sense of hopelessness and helplessness that led me to seek comfort in the arms of “Mother Africa” and in doing so I have discovered a new sense of purpose and direction. My book, “The Door of No Return”, A Spiritual pilgrimage For Africans in America” is 250 pages long and it catapults the reader along with 3 African-American female physicians to Dakar, Senegal after I am involved in a drive-by shooting. It is a fictionalized non-fiction work which uses real life characters and events some of which have been altered to protect the privacy of individuals or institutions. Starting from a small crime ridden town in California, I seek refuge with my girlfriends on this small slave island of Goree where inadvertently I claim the pain of my slave ancestors. There on this small island I am reunited with my soul when we visit the slave castle as tourists. “The Door of No Return” is steeped in African history and famous African-American quotations which are interspersed throughout the text are meant to inspire those who choose to take this pilgrimage to “The Door of No Return”.

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