American comedian, Steve Harvey, has said that aside the painful death of his mother, his visit to the slave dungeons in Ghana is the second most painful experience in his life.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, people were kidnapped from the continent of Africa and forced into slavery in the American and European colonies.
Envisaging the pains African slaves had to go through was a sad emotion he could not get over, according to him.
Steve Harvey was in Ghana a few weeks ago with other Africans from all over the world, to commemorate the Year of Return.
The “Year of Return, Ghana 2019” is a major landmark marketing campaign targeting the African–American and Diaspora Market to mark 400 years of the first enslaved African arriving in Jamestown Virginia.
Mr. Harvey said that upon visits to various castles in Ghana, he could not stand knowing that “one of my ancestors was in that room”.
“I was in Ghana, we came to Ghana a week ago to commemorate the 400 years the first slave ship left. It was the second-worst day of my life. The worst day of my life my mama died. I’d never really fully gotten over that but standing in the dungeons where they took us from, where they stripped us of our heritage, of our land, of our lineage that we Kings, Queens, Chiefs, landowners.” A teary Steve Harvey said.
He admitted he felt mixed emotions of anger and pain upon visiting the forts and castles by colonial masters.
“When I stood in that castle, I couldn’t even stand up.”
The Entertainer reiterated that he was appalled and bitter that the atrocity started in the first place and even lasted for hundreds of years.
“When we went to the second castle, I was just angry with what they did to us. How dare you create such an evil scheme; to strip people of who they are? To take us to a land far away where we were even hated more. And then we went ahead to build a whole nation. We built America.”
Despite slavery ending long ago, Steve Harvey believed that there is a residue of slavery and apartheid recalling the brutalities and unfair treatments meted on blacks by ‘superior’ whites without any punishment.
He relived pains of how blacks were named Negros, a degrading term used for dark-skinned group originally native to Africa, South of the Sahara until they had a wake-up call that they (Africans in developed countries) had an identity.
Humbled by the unfortunate past event, he felt a sense of belonging from the experience where he told fellow Africans at a conference in Botswana that, “We are all the same. You are mine and I am yours. I am black like you. I am African
Harvey called for unity among blacks admonishing that African-Americans need to teach their fellow blacks, in Africa the knowledge they have acquired in America for growth of the African continent.
