*This is the second installment is a 3 part series on the Year of Return* I have never really talked in depth about my experience in Ghana last year. However, as our community continues to be harmed by structural violence, I wanted to take this time to reflect on my experience publicly. And as I …
Category: Storytelling
Dreaming of Home, Part 1
In 2018, Ghanian president Nana Akufo-Addo announced before the U.N. that 2019 would be the Year of Return for Africans across the diaspora. This was important because 2019 marked the 400th year since Africans were stolen and forcibly enslaved in the British colonies in what would become the United States. Although Africans had been enslaved …
I Don’t Care About the Poor and Other Stories About Injustice
I recently came across an old journal entry of mine from the spring of 2006. For the majority of the piece, I rambled on and on about what I can only describe as nonsense. But right towards the end I wrote these words “I don’t care about the poor.” For many people who know me …
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Pass the Mic: Why Its Important to Tell Our Own Stories
My freshman year in high school was a pretty rough time for me. For all intents and purposes, I consider this time in my life my 'rebellious period.' where I rebelled against my mother and turned against God. Briefly. But in that period of brevity, I found myself hanging out with the wrong crowd and …
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The Power of Story
Several years ago, I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible. It is a fiction novel that weaves the lives of a dysfunctional missionary family with the people of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. As the novel tells the tales of this family, it also exposes the dirt in two governments – namely Zaire’s and …
Ebony Johanna 