How two slave ancestors from the U.S. and Jamaica started the emancipation journey to Ghana in 1998

To speak of Black Emancipation is to know and appreciate the historical events that led to the near loss of the Afrikan pride, and to pay respect to the intellectual and physical wars waged by our ancestors in their fight to liberate the hearts and minds of our race.

To speak of Black Emancipation is to understand the need to remove the Afrikan and persons of Afrikan descent from that environment within which can be found systems and regulations created to further dampen the flames of Black fire, and of Black power.

To speak of Black Emancipation is to come home, and that is just what Samuel Carson and Crystal did.

The family of the afore-mentioned Black royals who were unjustly held by the cold hands of slavery along with many others in the United States of America and Jamaica brought back the remains of their deceased relatives for burial on the Afrikan soil.

For a society forever riding on the wheels of convention, the return of the remains of the two deceased former slaves sought to serve a more symbolic purpose.

The remains of Samuel Carson and Crystal were symbolically passed through an opening within the Cape Coast Castel named; ‘The Door of No Return’. This was the final door the captured slaves emerged out of from their holdings in the castle to be ‘loaded’ unto the slave ships.

The symbolic passing of the remains of Samuel Carson and Crystal thereby sought to reverse the essence of ‘The Door of No Return’ to ‘The Door of Return’. Signalling to persons of Afrikan descent in the diaspora that the time is ripe for a return home.

They were buried at Assin Manso; a town that was a site of a former slave market where the fittest of our ancestors were separated from the weaker ones and were bathed in the river to clean them up for transportation. Our enslaved ancestors however regarded this ‘last bath’ as their final contact with Afrikan waters.

The 1998 ceremony was themed; ‘Emancipation, our Heritage our Strength’ and was led by Mr Minion Phillips and Mr Sonny Carson who were relatives of the repatriated deceased Afrikan kinsmen. The occasion was graced by government dignitaries, royalties as well as distinguished individuals from the Afrikan diaspora.

This occasion marked the beginning and most importantly, the significance of Black Emancipation. The traditional chieftaincy of Assin Manso saw to it that they were accorded the necessary respect Ghanaians and Afrikans at large afforded their deceased ancestry through burial rites.

The grave sites of Samuel Carson and Crystal have now become a symbol of ‘Return’ for persons of Afrikan descent living in the diaspora as was its purposed intention.