Diaspora

Ghana’s ‘Year of Return’ is emotional for descendents on both sides of the slave trade

August 23, 2019

As two groups of people separated generations ago are reunited, they’re also confronting their differences.

30 years later, the human chain that 'unshackled' the Baltic nations still matters

August 22, 2019

The human chain paved the way to Baltic independence, and, on the eve of its 30th anniversary, offers inspiration for Hong Kong protesters.

Retracing a slave route in Ghana, 400 years later

Reuters

August 22, 2019

Aug. 25 marks 400 years since the first recorded enslaved Africans arrived in North America to work plantations in English colonies. In the centuries after, European slave traders shipped millions of African men, women and children across the Atlantic Ocean. This photo essay retraces some of the final steps Ghanaians would have taken in their homeland.

'Willful amnesia': How Africans forgot — and remembered — their role in the slave trade

PRI's The World

August 20, 2019

Ghana’s “Year of Return” is changing how the history of the slave trade is remembered in Africa.

Slavers in the family: What a castle in Accra reveals about Ghana's history

The Conversation

August 19, 2019

When Rachel Engmann visited Christiansborg Castle, she noted a water cistern in the courtyard inscribed with the name “Carl Gustav Engmann.” She sought to find out more.

A professor with Ghanaian roots unearths a slave castle’s history — and her own

PRI's The World

August 19, 2019

Rachel Engmann, a professor at Hampshire College, found her surname in a slave castle in Accra, Ghana, and decided to do some digging.

Resistance and collaboration: Asameni and the keys to Christiansborg Castle in Accra

The Conversation

August 16, 2019

The story of how Christiansborg Castle’s keys come to be at the Bogyawe Palace is an intriguing one.

Language

Why are so many languages spoken in some places and so few in others?

The Conversation

August 15, 2019

Linguists have a lot of largely untested theories. Borrowing a tool from ecology, researchers built a model that didn't look for one worldwide explanation.

Immigration

Shopkeepers sue Sicilian Mafia in first-ever migrant-led case

PRI's The World

August 08, 2019

Nayeem's is the first case of its kind in Sicily where migrant shop-owners decided to confront the Mafia and inform the authorities

Identity

A DNA test connected two distant cousins — and filled out a family history that slavery erased

PRI's The World

August 05, 2019

Two distant cousins took DNA tests. When they connected, one of them — a descendant of enslaved Africans brought to the US — was able to tell the other about her heritage.

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