A raw account of visiting Calabar’s colonial-era museum—where the brutal history of the Middle Passage becomes personal, and a beautiful city transforms into a site of sorrow.
Calabar was the slave port through which the largest number of all African slaves were shipped. . . .Our FAMILY passed through that same spot where I was so revolted last night. . . .Unfortunately, what until last night was a beautiful place has now become something to despise.
A reflection on visiting Calabar’s slave museum—where grief, ancestral connection, and an unexpected conversation with a historian bridge past and present.
As we entered the museum, I had a sudden revulsion, as it dawned on me that this was likely the port from which the slaves from Kanuri land would have been shipped. . . .Tonight, for the first time, I felt a gulf between me and the Africans. The gulf was simply that we were looking at the same exhibits but our experiences were from opposite ends: my family left as slaves while theirs stayed behind.
I was born in the last year of the Baby Boom into an essentially all-white, all-Mormon community in Southern Utah. Six decades later, I am no longer Mormon, no longer white, and finally ready to share my story. The map is not yet complete, and new pathways beckon. Shall we see where they lead?
If these words resonate in your own journey, I'd love to know which passages lingered with you. Let's continue the dialogue.