Back to Africa? Revisiting Historical and Contemporary African Return Movements

In 1878, over 200 African Americans set sail from Charleston, South Carolina heading to Africa in search of a better life. Although the \u27Liberian Exodus\u27 was a disaster (mismanaged journey with high loss of life and unfulfilled promises), it is only one of scores of \u27Back to Africa\u27 movements. Generations of the African diaspora have engaged in return migration including the founding of Liberia and Sierra Leone, Garveyism, Rastafarianism, and Ghana\u27s contemporary \u27Right of Abode\u27 program. An analysis of these movements reveals the emerging of similar patterns, such as the inability to reconcile expectation and reality as well as diasporic returnees becoming the new elites. Similarly, an exploration of creative fiction and non-fiction works by authors such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Maya Angelou, Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta, Yaa Gyasi, and Lawrence Hill, encapsulate the dissonance that diasporic and contemporary returnees experience. Girma\u27s talk scrutinizes the desire, history, select literary expressions, pitfalls and potentials of back-to-Africa movements