Travel Across the Diaspora: Senegal

Written By Izzy Torkornoo

This week during my student ambassadorship was really focused on getting more acclimated with the process of making my weekly blog posts. During our weekly meeting, I was able to gain a greater understanding of the expectations for our blog posts and built on that foundation by exploring the archive in search of videos pertaining to the topic of the week: travel across the Diaspora. I explored interviews about travel to various locations such as Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Grenada before ultimately feeling most excited about the interview clips that I found with regards to travel to Senegal which became the research focus that I selected. The search terms that I used were “Senegal” + “travel.”

HistoryMaker Della Hardman, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/della-hardman-39

HistoryMaker Yvonne Seon, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/yvonne-seon-39

One major event that led to African-Americans and Afro-descendent people visiting Dakar, Senegal was the 1966 World Festival of Black Arts. HistoryMaker Della Hardman (1922-2005), who was an associate art professor at West Virginia State College for three decades, attended the festival and described the sheer magnificence of it: “I'll never forget the opening ceremonies in that huge theater… And then I remember the lines of people waiting to get into the opening ceremonies. And then with all the participants filing in, it reminded me of the thing that I saw, looking at the [2004 Summer] Olympics [Athens, Greece] the other night, all the countries, in their native attire. It was magnificent. I've never seen so many people gathered.”[1] HistoryMaker Yvonne Seon (1937-), who worked for the Congolese government and has been a board member of Africare, was also in attendance. HistoryMaker Seon claims the event was an, “important introduction to African culture, and also to Negritude… Pan Africanism… It was the first such attempt to bring people involved in the arts… from all over the world into Africa so that they could compare notes”[2] and highlights that “South America was represented… the West Indian Islands were represented… Europe was represented… we got this sense that there were people all over the world who were related to Africa. And because they were related to Africa, were related to each other or to one another.”[3]

Not only was the event organized in brilliant ways with such an international presence but, the people in attendance were also many of the most notable figures in the Black world. HistoryMaker Seon informs, “Haile Selassie was there. I was introduced to Aime Cesaire's work… I saw the West Indian dances one night and my mother was from the West Indies so… to see these cultures intertwine and interconnect in this way… I think that's really what got me started in trying to see Africa another way and to see it from the cultural point of view and understanding the culture…”[4] she continues, “The Alvin Ailey Dancers were there… Langston Hughes…”[5] and also noted the presence of, “[HM] Maya Angelou… Martin Jenkins… Duke Ellington was there and [HM] Mercer Cook”.[6] These cultural phenoms were all in Dakar together and I never learned about this immensely important moment until finding these clips in the archive. I am passionate about Black studies for reasons like these: so much of the brilliance of the Black world is still left to be studied and discovered.

HistoryMaker Larry Bailey, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/larry-bailey

Another major site that led to African-Americans visiting Senegal was to visit Gorée Island, one of the places where enslaved people were held, sold and shipped from. In describing her experience at Gorée Island, HistoryMaker Seon notes, “It was a horrible feeling… And I remember going into the fort and at one point it was very dark and you know… it had been in disrepair. And I finally got to the port where the window was… And when I got there and just saw that ocean, I just had tears in my eyes because I knew that I had a… great grandparent from French West Africa that had probably gone through that port. And I came out of there just feeling so bad and went to the Catholic church… all of a sudden I remembered as I looked up I saw the gold around the church and I recognized the role and complicity of the church in the slave trade… And I couldn't kneel there… I ran out of the church crying.”[7] The gravity of her emotions is an understandable and devastating example of how difficult it can be going to visit forts and castles in West Africa where enslaved people were tortured and dehumanized. Similarly, HistoryMaker Larry Bailey (1950-), a consultant and former partner at KMPG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, describes going to Gorée Island and his feelings: “it was an experience that I… share with many of my black friends who've gone over there and they've all had the same experience that when you go down into those tunnels and you go through the passage of no return, my knees buckled. It was like it all came home. And I actually didn't finish the tour. I came back upstairs. I've told several of my friends that story. They said they have had the same experience. I mean when you see that path, that hallway and that little round window opens up where they forced you into the ships and you just realize that what was happening with our ancestors and you just like--my knees buckled… I've never been back.”[8] The deeply overwhelming experience of not only being back to the continent but having gone to the places that so many African ancestors were terrorized really made for a physiologically painful experience for both HistoryMaker Seon and HistoryMaker Bailey. 

HistoryMaker Willis Bing Davis, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/willis-bing-davis-41

A very moving clip that made me feel such a sense of emotion was a clip from HistoryMaker Willis Bing Davis (1937-) who became the director of the Paul Robeson Cultural and Performing Arts Center in 1979. HistoryMaker Davis describes his visit to Gorée Island as, “an experience that was cleansing too 'cause I wasn't making sounds, but tears were rolling down my cheek. And I never felt so close to Africa than when I was sitting in that room. And it just reaffirms my commitment…to not only serving and helping, but being the best I could be, but also… to reaffirm the strength that I know we have as a people because I said I can't know which one of these doors of no return my ancestor came through. But somebody must have made it, or I would not be here. And to know what they've gone through for me to be standing, then I'm a strong person from strong people. And so it just gives me something I carry with me every place I go. I don't even have to talk about it now… I know I'm from greatness. Great architects, weavers, crafters, clay workers, builders of great sculptures and structures. So that trip for me just reaffirmed my whole existence to the point that I don't have to be boastful about it. But I now can walk… down any street in any city in the world and hold my head high and have a sense of who I am.”[9] His sense of self and unwavering determination to center his African ancestral pride reminds me so much of my grandma, I called her to explain to her that there are people like HistoryMaker Davis who also know that we absolutely come from extraordinary people as she has always reminded us. This clip was one of the most empowering moments I have had thus far within the archive.

Notes:

[1] Della Hardman (The HistoryMakers A2004.134), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 19, 2004, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 7, Della Hardman talks about attending the World Festival of Black Arts (FESMAN) in Dakar, Senegal

[2]Yvonne Seon (The HistoryMakers A2003.154), interviewed by Larry Crowe, July 14, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 7, Yvonne Seon describes her introduction to negritude and pan-Africanism at the 1966 World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar, Senegal, pt. 1

[3]Yvonne Seon (The HistoryMakers A2003.154), interviewed by Larry Crowe, July 14, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 2, Yvonne Seon describes the significance of the 1966 World Festival of Black Arts to Pan-Africanism

[4]Yvonne Seon (The HistoryMakers A2003.154), interviewed by Larry Crowe, July 14, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 7, Yvonne Seon describes her introduction to negritude and pan-Africanism at the 1966 World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar, Senegal, pt. 1

[5]Yvonne Seon (The HistoryMakers A2003.154), interviewed by Larry Crowe, July 14, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 8, Yvonne Seon describes her introduction to negritude and pan-Africanism at the 1966 World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar, Senegal, pt. 2

[6]Yvonne Seon (The HistoryMakers A2003.154), interviewed by Larry Crowe, July 14, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 1, Yvonne Seon describes her introduction to negritude and pan-Africanism at the 1966 World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar, Senegal, pt. 3

[7]Yvonne Seon (The HistoryMakers A2003.154), interviewed by Larry Crowe, July 14, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 9, Yvonne Seon talks about her visit to Maison Des Esclaves on Goree Island off the coast of Dakar, Senegal

[8]Larry Bailey (The HistoryMakers A2012.225), interviewed by Larry Crowe, September 12, 2012, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 5, Larry Bailey remembers his trip to Senegal

[9]Willis Bing Davis (The HistoryMakers A2006.044), interviewed by Larry Crowe, March 20, 2006, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 1, Willis Bing Davis remembers his visit to Goree Island in Dakar, Senegal in 1973

Izzy Torkornoo

Isabel (Izzy) Torkornoo (she/her/hers) from New York CIty, is a first-generation Ghanaian-American young woman who currently attends Wellesley College. At Wellesley, Izzy has continued her passion for global Black studies by majoring in Africana Studies. Her courses have created an expansive understanding of the vastness and incredible diversity of the African Diaspora across the world. She has also furthered her interests in education through becoming an Education minor and has aspirations to increase the presence and centrality of global Black studies in K-12 curricula. With a love for the spoken word and her own family’s oral traditions, Izzy brings a level of deep intentionality to the work of The HistoryMakers. Izzy is a rising senior at Wellesley and will graduate in the Spring of 2023.

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