In February 1996, 15-year-old Kennedy Johnson gave birth to a baby girl in a Detroit foster home for teen moms. Fast forward 25 years, and Johnson found herself in northern Ghana, being crowned a queen—a journey she never could have imagined.
In October 2021, Johnson was honored with the title “Zosimli Naa” in front of an adoring crowd in Tamale, the largest city in northern Ghana. Conferred by the Dakpema, Fuseini Bawa, a local spiritual leader, the title translates to “Friendship Queen,” making her the Dakpema’s head of development in the area.
Far from her Detroit home, Johnson, dressed in traditional royal attire and riding a horse, might have felt as though she were dreaming.
RELATED STORIES
“I’m still pinching myself,” Johnson told CNN. “It feels very surreal.”
Johnson’s journey started as a young mother in 1990s Detroit, a time she describes as “a bit of a challenge.” At 15, she was dropped off at a foster home for pregnant teens by a relative who promised to return after the birth but never did.
“I had to abandon a lot of my childhood goals,” she said. “I just had to dig deep and find some sort of strength.”
When her daughter D’Kiya was 11, Johnson began taking her on international trips, starting with the Bahamas, then Hong Kong, and South America. They developed a love for travel, and Johnson started documenting their journeys online to inspire minorities to travel.
“I would meet other people in my age group, but not my demographic,” she said. “I was going places and people would stop me and be like: ‘Beyoncé!’ They would automatically assume I was in the entertainment industry and not taking a holiday, because people of color weren’t really traveling like that.”
After her daughter D’Kiya left home, Johnson took a DNA test that revealed her Nigerian and Ghanaian heritage. This discovery led her to West Africa, which she described as a “return” and “a huge sigh of relief.”
In 2018, Johnson founded Green Book Travel, a company that organizes trips to West Africa for members of the diaspora. Named after the travel guide that helped Black people navigate safely during the Jim Crow era, Green Book Travel takes visitors to historically significant sites, including those related to the transatlantic slave trade.
Johnson’s trips to West Africa quickly attracted hundreds of participants, leading her to travel there more frequently.
On one trip, she felt a strong, almost physical compulsion to visit northern Ghana. During her second day in the region, she was summoned for a customary visit with the Dakpema and his elders in Tamale and she soon realizing this was no ordinary meeting.
“They started consulting amongst each other,” she said, “and then they said ‘we want you to go to prepare to be the Queen.’”
Initially unaware of the significance of the offer, Johnson recounted the meeting to a village elder, who was so shocked he nearly crashed his car.
Four months later, accompanied by her daughter and best friend, Johnson was officially “enskinned” as the Friendship Queen in Tamale.
She was introduced to the community during a parade at the annual Damba festival, riding on a horse to cheers from the crowd.
“It was overwhelming because the crowd was so big,” said Kendall Jones, Johnson’s best friend who was by her side at the event. “It was my first time ever experiencing having people chase your car down as you’re driving away.”
As Friendship Queen, Johnson holds an elevated status and practical responsibilities within the community.
She collaborates with the elders of the 14th-century Dagbon Kingdom, which has around five million people, to implement positive initiatives in Tamale, where she now resides.
Through her charitable foundation, Kith and Kin, Johnson has provided clean water, sanitary products, and shoes to the community and is developing a support scheme for orphans.
She is highly revered locally.
“You are put on a pedestal,” she said, “There are all the formalities — the bowing, the ‘Her Royal Majesty,’ making sure that you’re taken care of.”
It’s a difficult adjustment for someone unfamiliar with celebrity. But to Johnson, the role comes naturally. “She represents peace, unity, hope and the connection of our past to the future,” said the Dakpema, who was instantly impressed by Johnson upon her first visit to his palace. “She is very popular within Dagbon and highly respected. The people admire her.”
