“Open The Gullah Ports” WADU Calls For A Bold African Diaspora Trade Initiative

The World African Diaspora Union (WADU) Summit this Summer 2019 is calling for the trading ports along the nGullah-geeche region of the USA to be opened to promote African Diaspora Fair Trade.

The historic Black region of the USA where most Africans were transported and traded into North America initially from the Caribbean and then directly from Africa is still the most impoverished of African people in the USA.

They also have the least stake in the major economic trading engine of the region since the reign of chattel slavery that have dominated Africans in the Ameicas and decimated the indigenous people across the Americas.

The call for a Fair Trade initiative to strengthen the economic power of the African diaspora region comes as at a time when Africans in the USA commemorate the 400th year anniversary of the enslavement and after 500 years of slavery in the greater Caribbean region.

The call also comes as the nations of the Caribbean are attempting to accelerate the unity of the Diaspora with Caricom leadership and after the African Union had failed to fast-track an AU government with the Diaspora. Further, the call is in response to the current crises besieging Africa and now spreading into its Diaspora, especially the Caribbean region.

Finally, it is a response to the Trumpian “Monroe Doctrine” agenda to close its borders to restrict the full engagement of Africans and the oppressed people in the world from gaining power. For WADU, without decisive actions by Africans, the crises will only inflict more misery and engulf Africans, globally.

Therefore, Minister P.D. Menelik Harris is pressing key African diaspora leaders in the USA and Caricom to unleash this powerful “Black Star Line” trade initiative that will provide growth to Africans in the diaspora to help rebuild our Homeland and advance African people, globally. Menelik played a key role in pushing the first major U.S. trade initiative with Africa for Africans in the USA and Africa, to begin promoting fair trade.

Though it has resulted in major advancement of some key nations in Africa, Harris said: “many in the Black elite of Africa and the USA have mostly corrupted the process, especially with those in Africa lacking an authentic agenda that is controlled by Africans.” Menelik is from Jamaica and his wife’s family is from the U.S. Gullah region.

The 2019 WADU Sankofa (Pilgrimage) Summit will convene on July 11, 2019, in Savannah, Georgia. A historic center, Savannah is where Africans from across the diaspora fought in the first major war (1776) for African freedom. It is also a key center of the initiation of the diaspora Ethiopianist movement before spreading to Jamaica with those Africans who sought refuge in the Caribbean as others repatriated to Africa to avoid chattel slavery.

Additionally, July 11 is to honor Baba Dr. Ndugu T’Ofori-Atta, the main initiator of WADU with Baba Elombe Brath. WADU has since served as the critical catalyst on Pan African issues in the 21st century.

The Summit will focus on Ubuntu (African spirituality), advancing our Union Government (Uhuru) and Economic Empowerment (Ususu).

For more information, please contact WADU at [email protected].