Rather long piece but quite interesting.


> >  >Coming Home to Africa  >  >  >Black Americans are resettling in
>ancestral lands, embracing a heritage and looking to the continent's
>potential as a way to fulfill dreams.  >  >By ANN M. SIMMONS  >TIMES STAFF
>WRITER  >  >September 10 2002  >  >DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania -- Two years
>ago, David Robinson caved in and bought a television set. A telephone
>followed shortly after. But Robinson still lives in a backwater where
>solar electricity is the norm, public transport is limited and cell phones
>don't work.  >  >Walking, sometimes for up to three hours, is often the
>only way to get a message to someone.  >  >The son of baseball legend
>Jackie Robinson regards the sacrifice of a few modern conveniences as
>worthwhile. His dream, ever since setting foot in Africa as a tourist in
>1967, was to settle down, connect with his cultural heritage and help
>develop the continent's economic potential.  >  >In 1986, Robinson put
>down roots in Tanzania. He says he has never looked back.  >  >"It has
>exceeded any expectations that I had," said Robinson, 50. "One could never
>know the opportunities, the beauty, the pleasure of living here until one
>does live here."  >  >Robinson is just one among a stream of African
>Americans who have come to Africa to exercise what many consider an
>ancestral right: To make the continent their permanent home.  >  >Many are
>attracted by the ideal of solidarity and the prospect of being part of the
>racial majority. Others seek business opportunities that will both
>contribute to Africa's development and lead to personal gain. Still others
>want their children to appreciate their cultural heritage and to grow up
>in communities where their role models are people of color. Some come to
>retire.  >  >Some newcomers have African spouses who can help ease them
>into their new environment. Many have both the education and moneyóalong
>with the patienceóto make their dreams of a new life on a new continent
>come true. In the process, these Americans believe they can help shape
>Africa's future.  >  >"Logically, the African American tribes outside of
>Africa have something to offer and can play a role in Africa's global
>development," said Robinson, a onetime fisherman and exporter of African
>art who has been a coffee farmer for the last decade.  >  >There are no
>concrete statistics on the number of African Americans who have decided to
>settle in Africa. U.S. embassies do not register Americans living in
>individual countries by race. However, Tanzania, Ghana, Senegal, Ivory
>Coast, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa are among the countries that have
>welcomed African Americans.  >  >Estimates by those who count themselves
>among this new breed of settler range from as few as 15 permanent black
>American residents in Tanzania to more than 1,000 in South Africa.  >
>>For many, the transition has had bumps. In many African countries,
>communications and roads are poor. Public services are often unreliable.
>Tardiness and other annoying work habits frustrate many newcomers.  >
>>Such challenges did not deter the Connecticut-born Robinson. For him,
>moving to Tanzania felt natural. He was inspired, he said, by the example
>of his father, who broke major league baseball's color barrier in 1947.  >
>>"When you are faced with the negatives of racism, to be supported by the
>personal courage and success of one's parent is a tremendous barrier
>against the negative attitudes of society," Robinson said.  >  >Robinson,
>who married a Tanzanian woman after he arrived in Africa and is father to
>nine children, owns a 120-acre farm in the northern mountains about 550
>miles from Dar es Salaam, the capital. Called "Sweet Unity Farms," it is
>part of a 350-farm cooperative, of which Robinson is director of marketing
>and finance.  >  >To buy his land, Robinson had to state his case to
>regional officials and village committees. In the end, he played the race
>cardóin keeping with the views of Tanzania's revered founding father,
>Julius K. Nyerere, who preached unity and welcomed blacks born outside
>Africa.  >  >"My ultimate presentation was that I was a black person who
>had lost my nationalistic and tribal ties [to Africa] and I wanted to come
>back," recalled Robinson, who now speaks fluent Kiswahili, Tanzania's
>official language.  >  >He was offered as much land as he could clear and
>use. A novice, Robinson relied heavily on his neighbors to learn farming.
>Today, he exports coffee beans to the United States. Tanzanian coffee is
>considered to be among the best in the world, and the beans fetch a
>premium price.  >  >Robinson maintains that such success would have been
>harder to achieve in the United States.  >  >"I still believe the
>psychological barriers and calluses and bruises that we sustained
>throughout our American experience continues to block us from taking
>advantage of the opportunities that we can have," said Robinson, who
>retains a U.S. passport but expects to become a Tanzanian citizen. "We are
>not the normal American immigrant but the descendants of slaves. We have
>to recognize that."  >  >It was business as well as the prospect of
>helping to develop a country governed by black people that led Victoria
>Cooper in 1993 to the West African country of Ghana, across the continent
>from Robinson.  >  >"Growing up as an American, I would be doing a
>disservice if I came to Ghana and didn't share my talents and experiences
>gained in America with Ghanaians," said Cooper, 46, a St. Louis native.  >
>>A former partner in the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, she left
>in July 2001 to launch a consulting firm that advises governments on
>public sector reform and provides foreign investor services in West
>Africa. Cooper says that Ghana has untold potential.  >  >"The current
>administration has a focus on business, and one can feel the commitment,"
>said Cooper, who is also president of the American Chamber of Commerce,
>Ghana. "Although they have an uphill battle, they recognize what that
>battle is."  >  >The African American Assn. in Ghana has about 50
>dues-paying members, but many others regularly come to meetings, said
>Cooper, who presides over the group. During the last two years, several
>dozen African Americans have arrivedósome to pursue business, others to
>retire, she said.  >  >Since becoming the first African colony to gain
>independence from Britain, in 1957, Ghana has held a special appeal to
>African Americans. U.S.-educated Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president,
>was a proponent of repatriation to Africa. Hundreds heeded his call, and
>in the 1960s the nascent democracy became a popular destination for black
>American activists, academics and professionals, including scholar W.E.B.
>Du Bois and writer Maya Angelou.  >  >The trend waned after Nkrumah was
>ousted in 1966, but it regained momentum while Jerry J. Rawlings, a former
>Ghanaian flight lieutenant, was in power. At a rally in Harlem in 1995,
>Rawlings announced plans to offer automatic Ghanaian citizenship to black
>Americans. He urged them to invest their savings in Africa's future.  >
>>The offer of citizenship has since been modified to the right of abode,
>and legal details are still being ironed out, much to the frustration of
>some African Americans.  >  >"Just taking him at his word, they packed up
>and came over expecting to get work permits," Cooper recalled. "It was
>easier said than done. Many have been disappointed that it has not
>happened sooner. But they are not totally discouraged."  >  >In a way,
>Michael Giles was pursuing the American dream when he moved to South
>Africa in 1993. Giles said that despite having degrees from Harvard and
>Columbia Law School, he felt that obstacles including institutionalized
>racism would prevent him from reaching his full professional potential.  >
>>"I thought I really can't take the risk of spending the years when you
>have the energy and the drive to do something exciting, squandering it in
>a place that is not going to be receptive," said Giles, 43, who is from
>Newark, N.J. "The tragedy is, race has blemished the opportunity for
>African Americans to achieve the American dream."  >  >Giles, who met his
>South African wife, Bernadette, at Harvard, gave up a career in corporate
>law to launch a chain of Laundromats in South Africa. They later started a
>tourism company, Heritage Africa, in Johannesburg.  >  >"This place
>represents an opportunity," Giles said. "To be here now and involved in
>tourism is like being at the epicenter of what's going to be the future of
>South Africaójobs, economic opportunities for black people, growth of the
>economy."  >  >Hundreds of African Americans flocked to South Africa after
>Nelson Mandela led the country's first black-majority government into
>power in 1994. Although the stream has slowed in recent years, South
>Africa still is considered the main hub of black American resettlement.  >
>>"It can lead the way for the rest of Africa," said Gayla Cook-Mohajane,
>52, director of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a
>Johannesburg-based American think tank. She has lived in South Africa for
>12 years. "For people looking for a place with energy, this is it. It is a
>very international place, a crossroads of culture."  >  >South Africa may
>be especially attractive to American blacks because of the problems
>elsewhere on the continent: political upheaval, dictatorship, rough living
>conditions, and language barriers.  >  >"South Africa, ironically, became
>the Great White Hope of the black diaspora," John Matshikiza, a respected
>South African columnist and university research fellow, wrote recently in
>the weekly Mail & Guardian newspaper.  >  >"People speak comprehensible
>English here. Telephones work," he said. "There's a black president, a
>largely black Cabinet, black empowerment and a black economic elite which,
>even though they may show signs of moral confusion and fallibility,
>nevertheless symbolize a significant advance in the worldwide profile of
>the black world."  >  >Skin color does not always guarantee acceptance.
>Some South Africans found Americans who arrived soon after the transition
>to black majority rule to be patronizing, cliquish and arrogant about the
>role they played in the struggle against apartheid. Others saw them as
>unwanted competition. Companies tried to meet affirmative action quotas by
>hiring black Americans rather than South Africans.  >  >"On the whole, the
>perception people had was that they came in with an attitude, that they
>wanted to teach these backward Africans a thing or two, that they were the
>better Africans," said Mzimkulu Malungu, projects manager for the Business
>Day and Financial Mail newspaper group. "People did not take too kindly to
>that."  >  >Detroit native Francis Kornegay, a program coordinator in an
>international relations program at the University of the Witwatersrand in
>Johannesburg, said South African blacks still are adjusting to seeing
>blacks from other African countries as well as from the United States. In
>recent years, South Africa has seen a flood of would-be immigrants from
>other parts of the continent.  >  >"When it comes to African Americans,
>[their] attitude may be affected by their attitude of ambivalence to the
>U.S. in general," he said. "And most black South Africans are quite
>ignorant about the anti-apartheid history in the U.S." Blacks helped lead
>America's economic embargo against apartheid-era South Africa.  >  >The
>Pan-African spirit that exists elsewhere, particularly in West Africa, the
>ancestral home of most American blacks, is absent in South Africa, said
>Kornegay, who has lived there since 1994.  >  >Supporters of the black
>Americans' endeavors in South Africa dismiss the issue of jobs as a
>smokescreen for petty jealousies.  >  >"We are not in direct competition
>with many South Africans, because most of us who come create our own jobs,
>and jobs for South Africans, or bring our own jobs with us," said Jerelyn
>Eddings, executive director of the Foundation for African Media
>Excellence, which promotes quality journalism in Africa.  >  >On the
>whole, however, African Americans say they have been made to feel welcome
>in Africa, sometimes more so than in America. Race has been the major
>factor.  >  >"I feel comfortable because I am a person of color," said
>Cooper, the business consultant in Ghana. "It makes entrance easier. It
>breaks down some barriers that would immediately go up if I were not a
>person of color."  >  >That feeling has been one of the best aspects of
>living in Africa for Robi Machaba, who was known as Irving W. Robinson
>back home in Columbus, Ga. The Waikoma ethnic group of Tanzania, among
>whom he has lived since 1985, gave Machaba his new name.  >  >A former
>development consultant, Machaba was given land in 1990 and now grows
>avocados and passion fruit near the shores of Lake Victoria.  >  >"Here I
>have land, whereas America has never given me my 40 acres and a mule,"
>said Machaba, 59. He said he gives back by helping to curate an annual
>sculpture exhibit to raise funds for a bush basketball team he helps run.
>>  >Like most expatriates in Africa, black Americans typically live
>comfortable lives. Many can afford nice homes and, when necessary,
>electrical generators, water storage tanks, and housekeeping and gardening
>services that help make up for the lack of infrastructure.  >
>>Expatriates contrast their lives with black Americans who have fallen
>prey to crime and drugs. Some of them believe social problems were
>intentionally planted in American black communities to ensure their
>demise.  >  >"One needs only to look at the American prisons, American
>substance abuse programs and the number of premature deaths, and you can
>see that society is successfully eliminating the African American male,"
>said David Robinson. "It is hard for a black man in America, and in
>particular for a black man with self-respect."  >  >Ensuring that her son,
>Selasi, now 10, would grow up in an environment where his skin color would
>not be an obstacle was a key factor in Mona Boyd's decision to move to her
>husband's native Ghana in 1994.  >  >"I really wanted to give him the
>opportunity to grow into a confident man, without being marginalized in
>any way," said Boyd, 52, who owns the Avis car rental franchise in Accra,
>Ghana's capital, and a successful tour company.  >  >"I felt Ghana could
>do that for him."  >  >She also wanted him to be surrounded by black role
>models. Cooper felt the same way about her teenage daughters, both of whom
>grew up in Ghana.  >  >"They don't have to have any insecurity about who
>they are," Cooper said. "They can have a very high sense of self-esteem,
>because people they see doing big thingsódoctors, lawyers, engineers, even
>presidentsólook like them. They can aspire to anything."  >  >Cooper and
>Boyd both said exposing their children to their heritage was also
>important.  >  >"I was keenly aware that my heritage was very short," said
>Boyd, who can trace her family tree back 100 or so years to a farming
>community in Turrell, Ark. "We can only go back so far. I felt something
>was missing. My husband being Ghanaian with a family history of a thousand
>years, I felt the best gift we could give Selasi was a part of this."  >
>>Even though such opportunities have made it easier for these Americans to
>leave the country of their birth, the United States remains a land that,
>ironically, receives thousands of applications every year from would-be
>African immigrants.  >  >"I like America, but I've decided not to be part
>of the finale," Machaba said. "I've found a place to die. It's just that
>simple. I am free here."  >  >D. Adrian Bryan  >  >

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