Kamala Harris, at Former Slave Port in Ghana, Ties Past to Present

By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, New York Times

The vice president leaned into her heritage during a three-nation trip to Africa to strengthen U.S. relations on the continent.

After walking down a path where enslaved people once marched in chains to waiting ships, Vice President Kamala Harris entered a dungeon in Cape Coast, Ghana, where captive women had sung songs praying for death. If nothing else, her tour guide said on Tuesday, they believed death would bring freedom.

Ms. Harris, wiping her face and visibly emotional, walked outside this former slave port and connected the past to the present.

“The descendants of the people that walked through that door were strong people, proud people, people of deep faith who loved their families, their traditions, their culture,” Ms. Harris said during her visit to the port, called Cape Coast Castle, used for the slave trade in the 17th century. Those people, she added, “went on to fight for civil rights, fight for justice in the United States of America and around the world.”

Ms. Harris, who is on a tour of three countries in Africa — Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia — has been focused on promoting investments in the continent and collaboration with the United States. She has sought to showcase young artists by posting a Spotify playlist of her favorite African music and appearing with musicians at a studio in Accra, the capital of Ghana.

But on Tuesday, Ms. Harris, the first woman of color to serve as vice president of the United States, spoke of a different way to revitalize the U.S. relationship with Africa: She encouraged Americans to honor and learn the bleak history that links many Black Americans to the continent.

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