Obama visits former slave trade fort in Senegal

NEWS


28/06 13:57 CET

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On the first leg of his eight day visit to Africa, US president Obama has taken his family to visit the point in Senegal where Africans were shipped as slaves to North America.

The House of Slaves fort on Goree Island off the coast of Senegal, was built in the late 18th century. For Obama, it was a moving moment.

He told local people who had come to see him that: “It’s always powerful for me to visit countries outside of the United States generally, but obviously for an African-American, and an African-American president to be able to visit this site I think gives me even greater motivation in terms of the defence of human rights around the world.”

Obama’s next stop is South Africa. The White House has said it is up to Nelson Mandela’s family whether Obama pays Mandela a visit. Mandela is described as in a ‘serious but stable’ condition. The US president has previously described the former South African president as a ‘hero.’

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FYI: 

 (Some folks don't know history or geography)

The president states that he is African-American, and he is right;  According to his own biography, his father Obama Sr. was a Kenyan (an African), and his mother Stanley was from Kansas (White).  

Yet, Obama does not share the African American lineage (he claims) that is descended from the men and women of the African Diaspora that populated the Western Hemisphere (from the U.S. to Argentina) between the 16th through 19th Centuries;  The African Diaspora of the United States, Mexico, Central America, The Caribbean, and South America. e

A geographic explanation

The people that came to the New World during colonial times were from Western Africa (on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean): Senegal, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana, etc.

On the other hand, Kenya is in East Africa near the Indian Ocean...

The distance between Dakar, Senegal to Nairobi, Kenya is: 3829.1 Miles.

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