WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2004-02-19 Posted By: Jan
From the News Archives of: WWW.AfricanCrisis.Org
Date & Time Posted: 2/19/2004 6:33:45 AM
USA: Black Diplomat apologises for slavery
[Here’s an interesting and promising item. Some blacks from Africa admit to playing their part in slavery!! If only there was more honesty like this from blacks then race relations could improve properly. Jan]
Mobile, Alabama – A diplomat from Benin has travelled to America carrying an apology from the president for his country’s role in the slave trade.
On behalf of Benin’s Agency for Reconciliation and Development, Simon Pierre Adovelande apologised on Tuesday to students at a mainly black school in Plateau, a suburb of Mobile, Alabama, for his country’s participation in the slave trade more than 100 years ago.
In 1859, Benin, on Africa’s west coast, sold 116 slaves to a sailor from Alabama on a ship called the Clotilde – the last slave ship to arrive in America.
Thirty of those Africans eventually created their own settlement in northeast Mobile, and it came to be known as AfricaTown. The area today is known as Plateau,
“The people in my country — we miss a part of ourselves,” he said. “We’re looking at the people here like a tree that has lost its branches. Without branches, you can have no fruit.”
On behalf of his country’s president, Adovelande plans to issue another formal apology to slave descendants on Sunday at a Baptist Church in Alabama.
This week he will meet with business and community leaders to discuss increasing trade and tourism between Benin and south Alabama.
Adovelande said that while he wanted to teach the children about their roots, he also wanted them to understand that his people are not much different from the people of Mobile.
“I want to eliminate the images that Africa means war, that Africa means disease, that Africa means everything that is bad,” he said.
Teacher Deonne Wilson said she hoped Adovelande’s visit would help “bridge the gap we’ve been missing, so we can clarify our misconceptions and get an idea about what life is like in another country”.
“Everything he told us was different from what I had heard about Africa,” said 13-year-old Michelle Reed.
Fourteen-year-old Raphael Poellaitz, agreed: “It’s good to know about the country, because we are African Americans.”
The act of importing slaves into America was outlawed in the early 1800s, but the Mobile County sailor, on a bet, according to historical accounts, sneaked through a federal blockade to buy slaves from Benin, formerly Dahomey.
The 116 Africans representing different tribes who had been captured during internal governmental conflicts and resulting skirmishes were brought back to America undetected, according to a history of AfricaTown.
Edited by Tricia Shannon
Source: News24.com
URL: http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2…br>