At Slave Transit Point, Clinton Cites U.S. Role

Standing at the transit point for millions of manacled Africans en route to slavery in the New World, President Clinton on Thursday declared this picturesque isle’s horrible past to be as much a part of American as African history.

The visit to Goree Island was the crowning gesture of Clinton’s 12-day African tour, which was as much about affirming black Americans as it was about building new ties with Africa.

“I am proud to be a president of a nation of many colors,” Clinton said, addressing a group of residents of the small island and mainlanders from Dakar, the capital of Senegal, which is two miles away.

Clinton paid special tribute to African Americans in his delegation and the rest of the 30 million Americans who are descended from people uprooted from Africa. “The long journey of African Americans proves that the spirit can never be enslaved,” he said.

The speech came after Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton toured the rouge-colored Slave House where millions of Africans ended their lives as free people and became captives of white men sending them across the ocean to an unknown future. When they reached the “door of no return,” through which the millions of Africans were marched onto ships, the first couple paused, holding hands and staring somberly and silently out across the Atlantic Ocean.

Above the door is written in French: “Door of No Return. Through this door for a voyage without return they would go, their eyes fixed on the infinity of their suffering.”

As the pulsating sound of African drums filled the air, the president crouched down and went into the punishment cell for slaves who had balked at their fate. The ceiling was too low for an adult to stand. The curator showed the president a manacle and the 22-pound ball that was attached to it. “Some of the people weighed only 60 kilos [132 pounds], and they were carrying this around,” Clinton remarked.

Stopping to talk to several dozen American children touring the site, Clinton said: “When you get home, tell everybody else what you saw.”

After walking around, Clinton joined several islanders and Dakar residents who had been listening to bongo drums and enjoying a cool sea breeze as they waited for him in the dusty square near the docks.

“In 1776, when our nation was founded on the promise of freedom as God’s right to all human beings, a new building was dedicated here on Goree Island to the selling of human beings in bondage to America,” Clinton said, referring to Slave House. “Goree Island is, therefore, as much a part of our history as a part of African history.”

Untold numbers of men, women and children from what are now Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, Benin and Congo passed through Goree on the way to the U.S., the West Indies and Latin America. Over the centuries, the island’s ownership was disputed by the Dutch, Portuguese, French and British--all traded in human beings.

“We cannot push time backward through the door of no return. We have lived our history,” Clinton added gravely.

But what can be done, he stressed, is to continue to address the legacy of slavery that haunts America and move forward to a new partnership between the United States and Africa after decades of neglect. “I pledge to the people of Africa that we will reach over this ocean to build a new partnership based on friendship and respect.”

Throughout his six-nation odyssey, Clinton focused on the positive stories of an Africa that he says is undergoing a renaissance. His goal, he said, was to replace America’s dismal, stereotypical view of Africa with a picture of a thriving, diverse continent full of opportunity. “I have seen the faces of Africa’s future,” he said, praising those whom he had met on his African travels.

Clinton, who arrived in Washington late Thursday, said earlier in the day that he would never forget the strength he saw in South African President Nelson Mandela when visiting his old prison cell on Robben Island; the promise in the children in Uganda who are now offered education because of the democratic progress in their country; the courage of genocide survivors he met in Rwanda; or the warmth extended to him by the hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians who greeted him almost two weeks ago in Accra.

The president was not the only one moved by the Goree trip. The delegation that traveled with him--members of Congress and his administration, many of them African Americans--stopped to pray, holding hands in a circle, after leaving Slave House. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who led the prayer, broke into tears.

“I found myself feeling a combination of pain and anger and wondering about man’s inhumanity to man. I know it was way back then, but how could it have happened?” asked Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) after touring Slave House. “When the Rev. Jackson asked us to pray, I prayed to God to take away my anger and give me a forgiving spirit.”

Waters, who journeyed throughout Africa with the president, said she thought Clinton’s trip to Goree Island was vital for the message it would send to African Americans who suffer from racism and feel a “lack of wholeness” and to those Americans who deny that slavery’s legacy still plagues U.S. society. “It’s important to come to Goree so people can see this as real and not just as a figment of our imagination,” Waters added.

Clinton’s visit also was significant to the Senegalese, who saw it as an acknowledgment of wrong. “Goree reminds us of the humiliation which man inflicted on his neighbor,” President Abdou Diouf said in French before introducing Clinton to the crowd. “We will never forget,” he said, and then added in English: “Forgive, not forget.”

Demba Diene, 37, a waiter, said he would never forget this day. “It’s very important because it will remind the world of the horror of slavery,” Diene said.

Thursday was not the first time on this trip that Clinton had talked about slavery. In Uganda, he said European Americans were wrong to profit from slavery and included it in a list of America’s sins against Africa. That declaration and his speech Thursday stopped short of the formal apology that some African Americans have sought.