Escaping Persecution, Though, Is A Strong Motivator
Even in colonial days, there were white people— including Thomas Jefferson— who thought former slaves should return to Africa. In 1787 Britain began resettling free Blacks to Sierra Leone, including Black loyalists who had sided with the British during the American Revolution (in return for emancipation). The American Colonization Society (ACS), was founded in 1816 to transport freed slaves to what became Liberia in West Africa. Four years later they started sending ships with settlers. The first settlement was on Cape Mesurado near what is now Monrovia. Right off the bat, it was very challenging— hostile indigenous people, lack of food, poor housing, harsh climate, disease… The mortality rate was extremely high. Of the first 4,571 emigrants between 1820 and 1842, by 1843 just 1,819 survived.
Still, over the next decade, 5 more colonies were established, primarily with Blacks from Maryland, Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana and Pennsylvania. The U.S. government also established one near the original colony on Cape Mesurado. Between 1838 and 1842, the colonies started calling themselves Liberia and the inhabitants came to be known as Americo-Liberians and treated the indigenous people the way white people had treated them. In 1847 the colonies declared their independence and became the first republic in Africa, although the indigenous people had no right to vote (for over a century).
The Americo-Liberians dominated the country from 1847 to 1980, when the brutality of the government led to a violent coup against the Americo-Liberian government. There followed a complete loss of dominance for the Americo-Liberians and inter-tribal warfare and civil war.
Yesterday, Colette Coleman reported that there’s been something of a Back to Africa movement among America Blacks (Blaxit). She mentioned Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Ghana, but not a mention of Liberia. “They are enjoying the substantially lower cost of living and, more important, they said, the absence of the racism and discrimination they experienced in the United States. The Covid pandemic and the racial reckoning in the wake of the murder of George Floyd led some Black Americans to seek a different way of life abroad, in a movement that some are calling Blaxit. Those moving to Africa are also looking for an ancestral connection. Their migration is less about money and more about acceptance, a path that many intellectuals and artists have taken before.”
The Exodus Club has been helping people in the African diaspora move to the continent since 2017. R.J. Mahdi, 38, a consultant for the group, moved from Ohio to Senegal 10 years ago.
Mahdi said he had seen an increase in the number of Black Americans relocating to Africa in the past several years. “There are 10 times as many coming now as there were five or six years ago,” he said. By his estimate, demand for the Exodus Club’s services has grown at least 20 percent every year since its founding, when it had about 30 clients.
Becoming a “repat” felt empowering to Mahdi as a Black Muslim, he said. In the United States, about 14 percent of the population is Black, and just 2 percent of Black Americans are Muslim. In Senegal, however, nearly everyone is Black and Muslim. “For more reasons than one, we’re at home,” he said.
Yeah. You always need to adapt. When the shithole you live in decides to kill you, your standards as to where you'll be willing to move get lowered. You might ask a holocaust survivor or an emigre family from russian pogroms about that.
if fuhrer trump is pragmatic, he might find it cheaper to send them back than to kill them.
that's one of many things hitler did wrong. he hated the jews so much, he wouldn't let them emigrate (the rest of the world, including this shithole, pretty much refused to take them anyway). he wanted them all dead.
since democraps won't do shit about anything, it'll be up to the nazis and trump what they do with the pesky "others". you know, when they are deciding the fates of everyone.