The Ties that Bind: Lessons from the Historic African Diaspora

As we all know, the historic African diaspora in the United States is the result of the European Slave Trade that resulted in millions of people being taken from the African continent. Often the causes, problems, and solutions to the African brain drain leave out this population with most of the emphasis and research on the contemporary African diaspora. This may have to do with conclusions in some of the research that contend that this historic diaspora lost all linkages to Africa including language, religious practices, and family structures. On the other hand, there is a vast body of literature that supports the claim that the institution of slavery and all of its horrors did not totally sever social, cultural, economic, and political linkages to Africa. Furthermore, the research often addresses African influences on the African-American community and not African- American influences on Africa.

This paper will make the argument that the original, historic diaspora in the US retained linkages to the African continent despite its political, economic, and social position that slavery and its legacy produced. In other words, although this population was first enslaved, given a brief period to enjoy basic citizenship rights, disenfranchised, and won citizenship rights after many years of battling lynching, beatings, and Jim Crow laws, the ties that linked them to Africa were not severed. The paper will provide a historical and contemporary overview of the educational, political, and social linkages that the African diaspora in the US maintained with Africa and explains what role these linkages have and will contribute to solving Africa’s brain drain. The historical overview is important because it illustrates that in the absence of political and citizenship rights, they were in the forefront in fighting for these rights for Africans. With the improved political, educational, economic, and social status of the African diaspora in the US, its role in promoting African interests has expanded and improved. Finally, with modern communications and technology, the African-American community has global influence and visibility that include Africa.

The African diaspora in the US had a protracted struggle in its attempts to gain access to education. As part of the "master plan" to keep slaves in their subordinate positions, most southern states enacted slave codes with restrictions against teaching slaves how to read and write. This served as a tremendous brain loss and subjected them to an inferior, subordinate position in society. However, the quest for education did not begin after emancipation in 1865, but rather, there was a concerted effort on the part of slaves and free Blacks to gain access to education during the antebellum period by establishing private schools that they organized and funded. Immediately following emancipation, colleges were established for Blacks mainly in the south.

Given the common themes of freedom, liberation, education, and development so imbedded in the lives of African and African Americans, it is important to continue to seek and implement linkages that will benefit both groups. The success in such an endeavor lies in utilizing established educational institutions. In the case of African Americans, these are the 105 two and four-year post secondary historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). However, HBCUs suffered from a version of brain drain. After the civil rights movements, the passage of civil rights legislation, and the implementation of affirmative action, many African-American professors, academic staff, and students attended predominantly white colleges and universities. Due to the rising incidents of overt racism and the backlash against affirmative action, the trend was reversed—at least for African-American students.

Traditionally, African Americans who have taught at HBCUs have demonstrated an interest in Africa. Tuskegee University, under the leadership of Booker T. Washington in the late nineteenth century sent agricultural experts to present-day Togo to examine how cotton production could be improved. Several African leaders and other professionals obtained their undergraduate education at HBCUs—Kwame Nkrumah, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and C. Cecil Denis (Lincoln University, Pennsylvania), Angie Brooks (Howard University), and Ellen Mills Scarborough (Shaw University). In addition, the major HBCUs’ medical schools (Howard University and Meharry Medical Schools) were responsible for educating many African doctors in areas that were beneficial to the continent—"tropical medicine, bacteriology, microbiology, animal experimentation, statistical epidemiology," …and the training advanced the development of black American education and institutions." Patton provided the names of some of the African physicians trained at these two medical schools. The ones from Howard University Medical School include: J.H. Roberts (Liberia), Malaku E. Bayan, Ethiopia), David E. Boye-Johnson (Sierra Leone), Aderohunmau O. Laja (Nigeria), and Badejo O. Adebonojo (Nigeria). Meharry Medical School graduated John H. Jones (Liberia), Daniel Sharpe Malekebu (Malawi), Hastings Kamuzu Banda (Malawi), Joseph Nagbe Togbe (Liberia), and Henry Nehemiah Cooper (Liberia).

Although the number of African students studying in the US has declined from its peak in the 1980s, many are still attending HBCUs with Howard University taking the lead. For example, thirteen percent of Howard’s 10,500 students are from various African countries. HBCUs have played a significant role in educating many of Africa’s doctors, educators, engineers, computer scientists, and health care professionals—all of these are crucial fields for both African and African-American development. The role of HBCUs in providing educational opportunities to African students is one way in which the historical diaspora is linked to Africa. If the students decide to remain in the US, HBCUs are merely contributing to the problem of the brain drain and not the solution.

However, there are a number of ways in which HBCUs can contribute to Africa’s brain gain. Many HBCUs engage in several innovative community-based programs that African students can participate in and incorporate any relevant ideas into their professions regardless of whether they return home or not. Many of the programs address problems and concerns surrounding inadequate housing, education, and health care facilities, along with providing programs for small businesses. For example, Morgan State University, Central State University, Wiley College, the University of Arkansas, Pine Blue, and Bennett College are all engaged in housing construction or housing rehabilitation programs for their respective communities. The provision of decent housing is paramount to both communities’ development. In addition, Alabama A&M University is involved in an extension program that may be relevant for Africa. Most of the extension programs for Africa focus on rural areas and with the implementation of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) these have fallen upon hard times. However, Alabama A&M’s extension program focuses on urban communities that are in need of assistance. The program is designed to assist families by providing services in financial management, nutrition, child care, and parenting skills. Statistics show that Africa is becoming more and more urbanized and the same types of problems are and will be faced by both groups. These types of programs and services can be tailored to fit the needs of African universities, students, faculty, and communities. Moreover, African and African- American students and faculty can be recruited to work in these programs on the continent.

Several faculty at HBCUs are engaged in research that can serve to deepen educational linkages and contribute to brain gain. For example, Howard University is engaged in health and manpower development projects in Malawi that involve the treatment of tropical diseases, microbiology, and virology. The HBCU and Malawian faculty can work together and exchange ideas on this and similar projects. In other words, faculty exchanges are crucial for collaborative projects that will allow both groups to have exposure to each other’s works. The exchange fellows can benefit both institutions by providing lectures, teaching courses, and mentoring students. The exchanges will allow both groups to examine the various community projects underway that will enable them to assess their usefulness. The end result would be a brain gain for both groups.

The various political linkages that African Americans have established or attempted to establish with Africa after arriving in the US have often been predicated on domestic political and economic developments—the codification of slavery into law, the imposition of slave codes, the implementation of the Fugitive Slave Act, the inability and unwillingness of the government to protect their citizenship rights, and the end of Reconstruction. On the other hand, political linkages have also been the result of developments on the continent—the independence of Liberia, the colonization Sierra Leone and the Congo, the rise of nationalism, the imposition of apartheid in South Africa, the push for decolonization, and the civil strife that followed independence. Even the great civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1957 participated in Ghana’s independence celebrations and "the two most internationally visible personalities…have been King’s lieutenants: Andrew Jackson and Jesse Jackson." Both Young and Jackson took a keen interest in the issues of white supremacy and apartheid in southern Africa and advocated independence and self-rule for the region. Young’s appointment as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations did not stop him from speaking out against the injustices of apartheid in South Africa and white-minority rule in what was then Rhodesia. In fact according to Smith, "Young clearly thought he had a special mandate to participate in shaping U.S. foreign policy toward Africa, especially southern Africa." Jackson followed this pattern of putting southern Africa and apartheid on the U.S. foreign policy agenda when he ran for the presidency in 1984 and 1988. Karioko argued "in his quest for the presidency, Jackson applied the universal ethic enunciated by his mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King: that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere…Jackson made apartheid a presidential matter, an item on the U.S. national agenda."

Even when slavery and later separate but equal were the law of the land, some members of the historic African diaspora forged political linkages with Africa, although these linkages were not always positive—the main examples are Liberia and Sierra Leone that need no elaboration here. However, many leading African-American "intellectuals and others in different walks of life voiced their opposition to imperialism" which was evident during a 1893 meeting that discussed the historic diaspora’s linkages with the continent. The most significant leaders of the day, Edward Blyden, Alexander Crummell, Jakub Pasha, Booker T. Washington, and Bishop Henry M. Turner were present. Another illustration of their political commitment to Africa was their opposition to the exploitation and mistreatment of Africans in the Belgian Congo. Booker T. Washington, George Washington Williams, and other African-American leaders were "horrified by Leopold I’s ecological and economic rape of territory." Although Washington and others did not call for the independence of the territory, but rather, Belgian control, this action demonstrated that African Americans were concerned about Africa and European imperialism even when their domestic situation might indicate otherwise. Simply put, it would have been understandable if their political advocacy concentrated on domestic issues such as lynching, Jim Crow segregation, political violence, and intimidation.

Still another more positive example is the African-American response to the Italian invasion and occupation of Ethiopia between 1935-36. Several African-American newspapers wrote articles and editorials that demonstrated African Americans had political interests in Africa at a time when most of them could not vote leaving them with virtually no national or local representation. Still, others volunteered to "fight for Ethiopia" while others engaged in "fundraising and establishing Ethiopian aid organizations." And perhaps in response to the heightened interest in Africa following the invasion, the Council on African Affairs was organized in the late 1930s. Its members comprised that day’s leading African-Americans intellectuals—W.E.B. DuBois, Adam Clayton Powell, Ralph Bunche, Paul Robeson, and the first African-American president of Howard University, Mordecai Johnson.

Several other organizations that paved the way for the contemporary African-American advocacy groups should be noted: the American Society of African Culture (AMSAC), the American Negro Leadership Conference, and the World Congress of Black Writers and Artists. Again, the members and participants in these organizations read like a who’s who in Black America at that time—Richard Wright, Horace Mann Bond, Robert Carter, St. Clair Drake, and Saunders Redding. These organizations were concerned about decolonization efforts in Africa, democracy in Africa, and establishing and maintaining links to Africa. Kilson makes the argument that the AMSAC laid the foundation for the creation of two African-American organizations that worked on behalf of African issues--Operation Crossroads Africa and Africare. Both organizations were created to play a role in brain gain and not brain drain. Operations Crossroads sends students to work in rural areas in Africa. I have a friend from high school who went to Africa for the first time through Operations Crossroads. Although his trip was cut short by the attempted coup in the Gambia in 1982, he found this to be a life-changing experience. He, and his wife, and their two children now make their home in Accra, Ghana. He is a civil engineer by training and she is a lawyer by training. They have established an intercultural, non-profit organization that aims to contribute to the brain gain by getting students, teachers, retired persons, and others to travel to Ghana for an educational and cultural program. Participants in the program would lend their skills and knowledge to community development programs. The Unit for African Studies at Illinois State University that was recently established co-sponsored two students for the program.

Africare was established by an African-American former Peace Corps official and its aim is to provide assistance to African countries that are suffering from drought and other environmental conditions. It is important to note that Payne’s goal was to get the African-American churches involved in the organization’s relief efforts, which was a good strategy for several reasons. First, the African-American church has and continues to be the backbone of the community in terms of political leadership, mobilization, and fundraising. Second, if the African-American church is mobilized, the whole community is mobilized because a cross-section of the community’s population is involved in the church unlike other organizations that may only have students, intellectuals, professionals or workers as their members.

Although the majority of the historic African diaspora in the US did not enjoy citizenship rights in terms of voting and having political representation until 1965 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act, it lobbied for African causes. It can be argued that it was not until the post-civil rights era that African Americans were in a political position to effectively lobby for African interests. The educational, political, economic, and social rights granted to them under civil rights legislation allowed them to pursue domestic as well as foreign policy interests and Africa is at the center of their foreign policy agenda as Rep. Donald Payne (Democratic-New Jersey) illustrated. He stated, "to us – African-Americans—we think Africa is in our strategic national interest…. Jewish voters care about Israel… Greek-Americans about their issues. We are now doing that as well." It is important to have African Americans elected to Congress who are interesting in lobbying for Africa, but their membership on committees and subcommittees that deal with Africa is just as crucial for shaping a foreign policy agenda that will benefit Africa. Moreover, it is not membership alone that will advance the African agenda—African Americans must become chairpersons of those committees and subcommittees. For example, shortly after the CBC was formed, the late Congressman Charles Diggs became chairman of the House Subcommittee on African Affairs. In this position, he was able to push for the abolition of white minority rule in southern Africa by making sure that legislation was addressed by that committee and voted out. The fate of most legislation lies in the hands of the committee and subcommittee chairperson because before any piece of legislation goes to the full House for a vote, it must be voted out of the subcommittee or committee---it is the leader of the committee or subcommittee that determines if a vote will occur. If he or she wants to kill a bill, she or he simply refuses to call a vote and the bill dies a slow death in committee. I only mention the House of Representatives because the number or lack thereof of African Americans in the Senate precludes any discussion of their role in Africa-US foreign policy.

TransAfrica, formed in 1977, has been the premier African-American advocacy group for Africa. Its former executive director, Randall Robinson, was a tireless advocate for the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, the end of colonial rule in Zimbabwe and Namibia, the end of military rule in Nigeria, and the recognition by the international community of the genocide in Rwanda, along with other cases of human rights abuses. The organization’s involvement and contributions to the abolition of apartheid cannot be disputed, although it did not win all of its battles. The organization conducted numerous demonstrations against apartheid at the South African Embassy in Washington, DC, along with sit-ins and hunger strikes, and provided testimony to Congress concerning the political, economic, and social hardships endured by Africans under the harsh system of apartheid. TransAfrica took the lead in demanding that the U.S. government impose economic sanctions that were eventually imposed in 1986 following a presidential veto.

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) serves as the most important, prominent group for Africa for several reasons. First, its members hold elected offices which mean that their first and foremost loyalty and responsibility are to their constituents and most of them are elected from districts with sizeable African-American and African immigrant populations that are often interested in African issues. However, because they serve in Congress, their national leadership responsibilities allow them to put Africa on the national agenda, which they have attempted to do beginning in the 1970s when a sizeable number of African Americans were elected to Congress. The numbers of African Americans elected to Congress were the result of several factors. First, the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) that prohibited the use of structural barriers such as poll taxes and literacy tests that often prevented African Americans from voting. Second, the VRA came with enforcement mechanisms—federal examiners were sent to states (mainly southern) that had a history of voting rights violations. Third, Supreme Court cases that struck down the use of poll taxes in state elections and outlawed whites only primaries opened the voting arena for African Americans, along with the twenty-fourth amendment to the constitution that outlawed the use of poll taxes in federal elections. The final factor was the 1982 amended VRA that allowed for the creation of majority minority congressional districts. All of these factors not only gave African-Americans political rights—the rights to vote, but the right to vote for and elect one of their own. Thus, the creation of the CBC enters into the picture. Although the CBC is under-funded and it must meet the demands and needs of its domestic constituencies, it has been able to leverage political support or opposition for issues it contends are important to Africa and the US. It often works in conjunction with other African-American organizations to achieve its political.

The CBC and TransAfrica have continued to exert their influence on Africa-US relations, especially in terms of human rights and democracy. During the conservative Reagan-Bush era of 1980s, the CBC was instrumental in putting and keeping the issue of apartheid on the political agenda by rejecting Regan’s misplaced constructive engagement strategy to end apartheid. Instead, the CBC advocated economic sanctions to hit the white minority government where it hurt and through political and moral pressure it was able to pass legislation that called for economic sanctions against South Africa (The Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986). In more recent times, both organizations expressed their opposition to the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, which according to its sponsors and supporters, is designed to create better trading conditions for Africa and the US. However, Robinson and other members of the Caucus argued that the legislation will not benefit Africa because it stipulates a number of conditions that participating countries must meet including complying with rules set forth by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organization (WTO). According to some Caucus members and TransAfrica, the legislation is a manifestation of an American structural adjustment program that will have a similar outcome as those superimposed by the World Bank and IMF. Finally, African-American political leaders and other concerned citizens contended that the legislation does not address human rights and the need for democratic rule in Africa.

The work of the late Rev. Leon Sullivan should be given some attention at this point in the paper because his work was a combination of trying to forge economic, political, cultural, and educational ties to the continent, along with alleviating the African brain drain. He was responsible for spearheading five African-American African summits that addressed the issues of democracy, food security, debt relief, education, and economic cooperation between Africans and African Americans. A significant contribution to the African brain gain is the Teachers for Africa Program developed by Sullivan with the assistance of Dr. C.T. Wright of the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH) that sent more than seven hundred teaches to various African countries that included Ghana, Benin, Namibia, and Nigeria. Another noteworthy program sponsored by the two organizations that contributes to the brain gain is the Best and Brightest program. This program brings African bankers to the US for additional training in order that they may obtain management and leadership positions when they return home. Thus far, more than four thousand bankers have been trained in the program and they have returned home—an example of the role that the historic disapora can play in curbing the African brain drain.

A fairly new organization in the post-civil rights era, the National Summit on Africa, needs to be included in the discussion on African-American linkages and the

brain drain. This organization was founded in 1996 in response to not only post-civil rights political realities, but post-Cold War realties as well. With increased political and economic attention toward the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, many feared that Africa would totally disappear from the foreign policy radar screen at a time when some argued that Africa was experiencing a renaissance. The goal of the National Summit is educate all Americans on Africa in terms of its history and linkages to the US, and to explore ways in which the two can build partnerships around issues of concern (health, development, democracy, peace, security, etc.).

The CBC, TransAfrica, other African-American organizations have continued to use their political leverage to lobby for African issues. These organizations have voiced their concern and frustrations concerning the lack of assistance and attention given to civil wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, along with other issues of concern to them and the African continent.

Due to the political and social situation of African Americans mentioned earlier in the paper, it would make sense that their economic linkages to Africa were virtually nonexistent. However, following the end of the Revolutionary War and with slavery firmly codified into the constitution, many slaves and free people of African descent began to question their future in the US, especially in terms of achieving full citizenship rights, economic and intellectual independence, and self-respect. For some of those, emigration to Africa was the only solution. One of the leading proponents for emigration to Africa during the nineteenth century was Paul Cuffe who was a free African who lived in Massachusetts. Cuffe acquired his wealth in the shipping industry and through the ownership of property and land. Cuffe could have been satisfied with his freedom, property, and wealth, but he realized that he was not fully free and the future of "free Africans" in the US was precarious at best. He made two trips to Sierra Leone—one in 1811 to inquire about the feasibility of African emigration and another in 1815 when he took thirty-eight free Africans with him, but he soon realized that a "Back-to-Africa" operation would be very costly even for someone like himself who was independently wealthy and who was able to obtain financial backing from the British government.

Following Cuffe’s failed attempt to resettle Africans in Sierra Leone, debates among the leaders of the day (Frederick Douglass, Henry Highland Garnet, Martin Delany, Edward Blyden, and Alexander Crummell) continued that centered around finding a solution to the "Negro presence in America." Some believed that the end of slavery was a long way off. Still, others believed that free Blacks were in danger of being recaptured and re-enslaved and emigration, not necessarily to Africa, was the only solution. National Black emigration conventions were held in 1854, 1856, and 1858 to address the feasibility of emigration on a large scale, but everyone’s attention shifted to the Civil War and the certain political, economic, and social rights that would be gained following a victory by the north. However, the victory achieved by the Union troops did not bestow full citizenship rights upon people of African descent, and again, another round of Back-to-Africa movements was started.

One of the most compelling factors that served as a catalyst for emigration was the lack of economic opportunities—land for farming was needed and desired. It soon became evident that the promise of "forty acres and a mule" would not be forthcoming and economic linkages with Africa were explored. For example, several Blacks in South Carolina, with the assistance of Martin Delany, organized the Liberian Exodus Joint Stock Steamship Company in 1878 "to take back the culture, education, and religion acquired…in America..until the blaze of the gospel truth should glitter over the whole broad African continent." The company purchased a ship (the Azor) and left for Liberia with 206 passengers. Although the organizers and participants of this project held similar views as Christian missionaries, their goals and objectives included economic empowerment that eluded Blacks in the United States. Unfortunately, twenty-three of the passengers died before the ship reached Liberia and the company was not able to recover from bankruptcy.

Emigration clubs continued to emerge as the promises of Reconstruction went unfulfilled and political and economic disenfranchisement, along with threats, violence, and intimidation were the order of the day. Between 1878-1880, 126 Blacks were resettled in Liberia from Phillips County, Arkansas. In Conway County, Arkansas, the Liberia Exodus Association, among many others formed in the state, was established in 1883 as thousands of Blacks fled to the state from South Carolina in search of a better life.

As W.E.B. DuBois predicted, the problem of the twentieth century was the problem of the color line, therefore, several members of the historic diaspora continued to look toward Africa for economic, political, and social salvation. These included attempts by Benjamin "Pap" Singleton who established the United Transatlantic Society in Kansas in 1885 after his attempts to resettle former slaves in Kansas failed. Another example is Alfred Charles Sam who established the Akin Trading Company in Oklahoma during World War I. He traveled around the country trying to get investors for his company (he raised $100,000) and forming emigration clubs "to generate support for his plans" which culminated in the purchase of a ship the (Liberia) and the transport of sixty people, although most of them returned home, to current day Ghana. Sam, on the other hand, remained in Africa until he died.

Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) attempted to establish economic ties to Africa through his Black Star Steamship Line, but his plans never reached fruition. His vision of an African nation or homeland for all Africans in the historic diaspora was a continuation of the earlier themes of anti-colonialism, self-esteem, and economic independence espoused by Cuffe, Douglass, Crummel, Washington, and others who not only acknowledged their ties to Africa, but who worked to broaden and strengthen them. Garvey had grand plans for the historic African diaspora that included an Empire of Africa headed by himself as the Provisional President, along with Dukes of Niger, Knights of the Nile, and Knights of the Distinguished Service Order of Ethiopia that fit into Wilson’s re-Africanization motif argument. He contended, the "re-Africanization fetish has been more ideologically flamboyant than institutionally or politically viable." However, Garvey’s greatest success can be attributed to the numbers of people who joined his organization, the establishment of restaurants, grocery stores, laundries, a hotel, and a printing press. In addition, he managed to purchase three ships for the Black Star Line, however for various reasons, all three ships were grounded. Although Garvey is one of the leading figures in the Back to Africa movement, he unlike some of the lesser known participants, never managed to set foot on African soil. It should be noted that there were thousands of Blacks who sold property and other belonging to pay for their passage and they too never reached West Africa.

Again, with the passage of the VRA of 1965, its amendment in 1982, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, educational, political, and economic opportunities were expanded for the historic African disapora resulting in an increase in the African-American middle and upper middle classes. As more and more African Americans went to colleges and universities (both HBCUs and predominantly white universities), opportunities in the public and private sector became available with a spillover effect on African linkages. The numbers of African Americans employed in federal government agencies that deal with African issues increased—the State Department, the Agency for International Development, the Labor, Commerce, and Treasury Departments. The appointments of Andrew Young, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, the late Ronald Brown, Secretary of Department of Commerce, Alexis Herman, Secretary of Labor, Rosa White, assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Africa, Susan Rice, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Africa, Colin Powell Chief of the Joints Chief of State and Secretary of State, and Condezella Rice, National Security Advisor all provide evidence of the effects of civil rights legislation.

This new and expanding middle class coincided with an increase in interest in Africa that went beyond the wearing of kente and mud cloth. Many professionals and entrepreneurs wanted to establish economic linkages that would contribute to a brain gain for Africa, especially South Africa and Ghana. For example, approximately one thousand African Americans were employed in more than "300 hundred companies and non-profits in South Africa in 1998, while others engage in freelance work or have set up their own businesses." One of those includes Dennis L. Russell, a builder from San Diego, California. He is there to make money, but he is also interested in contributing to South Africa’s development when he says, "sometimes you have to do things that put people to work." He is dedicated to training workers and future entrepreneurs. It is important to note that the American multinationals that returned to South Africa after the abolition of apartheid were interested in recruiting African Americans to senior-level management positions with the idea that they could secure a "foothold in an emerging market in which competition is keen." Many of these African Americans have skills and training to contribute to the brain gain and many work in private and public sectors that are needed for the country’s development—telecommunications, transportation, computers, health care, housing construction, financial management, banking, law, and education. Another example of a contributor to the brain gain is Donald King, an African-American architect from Seattle, Washington. He originally explored investment opportunities in South Africa, but has now set his sights on Ghana after traveling with other African Americans and Ghanaians there to explore business opportunities. Still, E.J. Simon of Minneapolis, Minnesota has parlayed his engineering expertise into a multi-million dollar electricity development company in South Africa.

Although the emphasis of the paper has been on the role of the historic diaspora in forging linkages, the contemporary diaspora cannot be overlooked, especially in terms of its economic significance in the forms of remittances that are used to fund education, finance small businesses, and to cover health care and other needs. It has been estimated that "Nigerians abroad send an estimated $1.3 billion to relatives and friends at home. Sudanese do a whopping $147 million and Malians $103 million." When Africans have the opportunities to open and operate profitable businesses, send their children to school, obtain social services, they may remain on the continent and be able to participate in the brain gain instead of the brain drain. The economic role of the contemporary diaspora in the US should not be overlooked. Cameroon-American Holdings, Inc., based in Houston, Texas, is the largest Black-owned company in the country and its founder, chief executive officer, and president, Kase Lawal, was born in Nigeria. The company specializes in oil and gas exploration and has business interests in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Others include the Ethiopian born Noah Samara who is founder and chief executive officer of an audio technology company, Rebecca Enonchong, born in Cameroon, owns and operates a global information technology consulting company, and Chris Kirubi, Kenyan born, who is the chairman of a property management, insurance, and investment company.

With a yearly spending power of $543 billion, cultural linkages to African can be expanded to economic linkages and this is just what the late Rev. Leon Sullivan tried to do by holding summits and conferences in various Africa countries. Both African and African-American leaders, government officials, business executives attended these meetings. He urged African Americans to "build bridges to Africa" and to extend their skills, training, and money to Africa because "African-Americans businessmen might have more to do with shaping the future of Africa than anybody else."

This paper does not intend to argue that all of the African-American linkages to Africa have been positive, especially the cultural linkages. The African historic diaspora in the US has been fed a steady diet of negative, derograrty, and pejorative images of Africa and Africans following the arrival of the first Africans to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. The acceptance of negative images and perceptions of Africa and Africans is illustrated in the colonization of Liberia and Sierra Leone, and in the work and attitudes of African Americans who were sent to Africa to work as missionaries. As stated earlier, Paul Cuffe believed that members of the historic African Diaspora could achieve economic gains in Africa that were denied to them in the US. He also was a Quaker who believed they had a mission to evangelize which is why he established the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone for the settlement of people of African descent and to allow them to engage in proselytism. Others followed suit in the quest to spread the gospel including William Crane who established the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society around 1815. In 1821, Lott Carey went to Sierra Leone and later established the First Baptist Church in Monrovia in 1822.

Many African-American settlers in Liberia and Sierra Leone believed they were culturally superior to Africans because they were Christians, arrived in Africa as free people, had some level of literacy, were able to own property, and moreover they embraced Christian, western values. The settlers in the two colonies and the missionaries worked zealously to impart these "superior" values to the Africans. They wholeheartedly believed that it was their mission to "civilize" and to "bring enlightenment" to Africans through Christianity and instilling in them the Protestant work ethic that meant that some indigenous cultural values and practices had to be stopped—mainly polygamy. Alexander Crummel and Martin Delany are two examples of this mindset. However, there were many African-American missionaries who worked under similar racist conditions who were concerned about the welfare, education, and economic needs of Africans. Ham described several settler women in Liberia who worked to secure jobs, skills, health care, and education for both settler and African girls and women. The interest in missionary work decreased for a period before and after the Civil War, but after the end of Reconstruction during the 1870s when it became clear that racism and discrimination were the order of the day, a renewed interest in missionary work emerged.

It is hoped that contemporary and future cultural linkages with Africa will take on a more positive tone. This is demonstrated by the increase in travel to Africa, especially by African-American church groups to Ghana and South Africa. African Americans by far make up the majority of American tourists to Ghana. For example, the congregations of the African Methodist Episcopal Churches were invited to participate in a special Black History Month Tour to Ghana. The trip included cross-cultural and educational components with lectures on the history and culture of Ghana and African Americans. There were also tours planned for Benin, Senegal, and other countries in West Africa. Another example is the trip to Ghana sponsored by the Full Gospel AME Church in Temple Hills, Maryland. Members of this group visited the W.E.B. DuBois Memorial Center for Pan-African Culture, the Cape Coast and Elmina Slave castles, and Kumasi.

African Americans and Black South Africans enjoy a long history of both political and economic linkages, along with social, cultural, and educational linkages and tours to the country reflect these linkages. African-Americans visitors see the same important landmarks as everyone else, but their responses and reactions are different due to their linkages to the country and Black South Africans that are largely based on both groups’ histories of racial oppression, exploitation, and domination. In addition, both groups are grappling with the problems, frustrations, and prospects of living and developing in a post-civil rights and post-apartheid era when the wider society has shifted its focus and attention to other issues, but they still must tackle the basic issues of acquiring adequate employment, education, housing, and health care. By wider society, I mean whites who wield the political and economic power in the US and whites who wield economic power in South Africa. Visits to former President Nelson Mandela’s home, Steve Biko’s grave, Robben Island, the Hector Peterson Memorial, and Soweto can be emotionally wrenching for these "tourists" because the parallels between Jim Crow and apartheid and their lasting legacies are too glaring to ignore.

As stated above, not all African-American influences on Africa have been positive. This leads us to a discussion of the influence of rap and hip-hop music and the videos that accompany them. There is no doubt that this genre of music has created a billion dollar industry and its influence is global. Some would argue that rap and hip-hop are authentic expressions of African-American urban culture and their importance cannot be ignored. Others would argue that their messages of the "gansta" life, violence, and misogyny leave it outside the realm of culture. Whatever position one decides to take, the fact is that this music has been around for twenty-five years and its appeal is not waning—it’s from "New York to Nepal…and has "become America’s leading cultural export." However, the question must be asked what are African Americans exporting. Some answers to this question were provided during a field trip to Tanzania in 1998. I was in Dar es Salaam standing on the street waiting for a taxicab when three or four young men offered to assist me. After a brief chat, one of the group members asked me "if I was a nigger." I was shocked and wondered what made him ask such a question. I then proceeded to give him a lecture on the history of African Americans in the US, the legacy of the word nigger, and I suggested that if he ever traveled to the US that he should not use that word with strangers.

I later traveled to the western part of the country, Kibondo, Kagera Region to conduct my research on refugees. Kibondo is really a village that had been transformed into a small town as the result of the influx of refugees, relief workers, journalists, other Tanzanians who were looking for business opportunities, and researches like myself. Kibondo had no electricity, running water, nor indoor plumbing. One day while I was exploring my new surroundings, I encountered a young man who had set up a barbershop by the roadside. I inquired about the price of a haircut as I noticed the styles were similar to the ones young African-American men were sporting. Another young man joined the conversation by stating, "you must be a nigger from America." Again, I was shocked but I found myself more baffled because this was not Dar es Salaam and I wondered how they acquired the use of this word. But more unsettling, I wondered why they thought it was acceptable to use it, especially toward total strangers. Later, I discovered that although Kibondo had no electricity, generators powered vcrs and what went into them might provide the answer to the use of the word nigger—rap and hip-hop videos! Perhaps, Tanzanian youth found the word acceptable because it was so prelevant in the videos and its meaning was stripped of its historical venom. Moreover, these were African Americans calling each other "nigger" in sometimes an endearing way—surely African Americans viewed themselves as "niggers" and it was acceptable to use the word when addressing them. Finally, South Africa provides another example. On a television station that plays music videos, mainly rap and hip-hop, viewers are invited to call in and to greet people. One viewer called in and stated that he wanted, "to give a shout out to his nigger." How do you explain the use of this word in a country that had just emerged from the ravages of apartheid and the use of a similar word "kaffir" has the same historical meaning as "nigger"? I am not contending that rap and hip-hop music and the videos provide all the answers, but their influence on African youth is an area that needs to be examined. Furthermore, the popularity and influence of rap and hip-hop music, particularly in South Africa, is maybe similar to the popularity and influence of gospel music by the Virginia and Fisk Jubilee singers, jazz musicians, and other African-American musicians during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

It would be incorrect to argue that the historic African diaspora in the US lost all of its economic, cultural, and political links to the African continent as the result of slavery. It would also be incorrect to argue that all people of African descent in the US at all times have developed and maintained linkages to Africa. Their interest and participation in policy decisions, public debates, organizations, activities, and programs that concern Africa have ebbed and flowed over time depending on what was happening to them and what was happening on the continent and in the world at large. In other words, the linkages often depended on internal and external factors. Nevertheless, the linkages existed and have been broadened and strengthened over time. As African Americans were finally able to exercise their political rights, they voted and elected not just African Americans to Congress, but African Americans were elected to state legislatures, as mayors of large, urban cities, and to other state and local offices. All of these allow African Americans to have more influence on Africa-US foreign policy than in the past.

The political, educational, economic, and cultural linkages in historical and contemporary terms cannot be ignored. And because these linkages exist, it is argued that they can be used to contribute to Africa’s brain gain through educating Africans at HBCUs, engaging in exchange programs and collaborative work, working in Africa, transferring skills, knowledge, and expertise in fields needed for development, providing educational and cultural trips to Africa, spending money in Africa that can then be used for education and other useful purposes.

If slavery was unable to break the ties that bind the historical diaspora with Africa, it is unlikely that current and future events will be able to do it. And as long as these ties exist and the African-American community is able and willing to engage seriously in Africa, the end result should be a brain gain and not a brain drain.