Students perform a reenactment of the slave trade at the University of Ghana's Theatre of Arts at the Christiansborg castle, a former slave dungeon, in Accra, on June 19, 2026. The greatest tribute to those who perished in the transatlantic slave trade would be a free, prosperous and united Africa that exercises real sovereignty over its economic resources, knowledge production and cultural development, says the writer.
Kim Heller
In October 2026, South Africa will host the second Africa and African Diaspora Conference under the theme "The Return to Africa". Delegates will embark on a Pilgrimage of Return by visiting former slave-trade sites in South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Angola, Mozambique and Nigeria.
This journey carries profound symbolic significance. These are places of remembrance, mourning and historical fracture — the very sites from which African people were violently torn from their families, communities, land, livelihoods and liberty, and forced into slavery in foreign nations.
Reverend Frank Chikane, a co-convenor of the conference, has stated: "We want to mobilise the continent to deal with this damage and repair it and take Africans to the cutting edge." Returning to these historical sites has immeasurable value.
