As nationals across the world solidarize with America’s black community in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by holding protest marches, Ghanaian nationals and their African-American counterparts resident in Ghana also held a peaceful protest march, which culminated in front of the US Embassy in the country.
The June 1 protest march, which proceeded from the Diaspora Africa Forum (DAF) offices at the W.E.B. Du Bois Centre in Cantonments, Accra, was planned by the Diaspora Coalition “to deliver both verbal and written condemnation of the rampant police brutality of people of African descent in America.”
Because of Ghana’s strict Covid-19 protocol, which leaves little room for mass gatherings, the numbers couldn’t be in their hundreds nonetheless dozens managed to show up, displaying signages in front of the embassy about the brutalities meted to blacks.
Meanwhile, a larger protest march which was scheduled for Tuesday, June 2 in Accra to the US Embassy in Accra couldn’t be realized as the nation’s police force issued a release to encourage people to adhere to the restriction on public gatherings, demonstrations and rallies.
#GeorgeFloyd #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd pic.twitter.com/LOIcKLcB5i
— Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo) June 1, 2020
Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo has also commiserated with the family of Floyd, who was killed while in the custody of the Minneapolis police. He denounced the twin ills of hate and racism often visited on black Americans.
If some of these atrocities, especially from some white police officers against black citizens, cannot shock the American populace to see evidence of their own decline, what can? How can a police officer be the source of such cruel, violent death… pic.twitter.com/DqtfbzpAB7
— Jerry John Rawlings (@officeofJJR) May 28, 2020
Ghana’s president from 1992-2000, Jerry John Rawlings also warned such brutalities against the Black American community was a sign of its decline, adding that if it did not fight systemic racism, it would have itself to blame.
