HAMPTON, Virginia ‒ As a child, Djimon Hounsou played soccer on the beaches of his native Benin, a small country in West Africa. He didn't know then that those same beaches had been a “path of no return” for those led centuries ago to waiting slave ships.
It wasn’t until the award-winning actor starred in Steven Spielberg’s “Amistad,” a 1997 movie about a rebellion on a slave ship, that he fully understood the tragic history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its lasting impact.
“It really opened my mind about who I am … the history of my continent and the history of the diaspora,” Hounsou told USA TODAY in a recent interview. “We are very cut off from our past."
Today, Hounsou is on a mission to make sure others know the history that forever connects the United States and Europe to African nations, including his homeland of Benin.
As part of that mission, the Djimon Hounsou Foundation will host its fourth Run Richmond, Sept. 27 in Richmond, Virginia to preserve and promote Black history. Its 16.19 km distance (10.6 miles) is a nod to the year 1619, when a slave ship from Angola arrived in the English colonies.
