AMERICA IS OUR HOME!

AMERICA IS OUR HOME! It is well worth recalling this black history month that not many forays outside of America have fared too well for many black emigrationists. Whether we speak of Paul Cuffee's foray into Sierra Leone in the 1800s; of Nova Scotia with the British in the 1700s-1800s; of Liberia with the American Colonization Society, 1800s; of Nigeria with Martin R. Delaney, 1800s; of Haiti with Rev. Holly, 1800s; or to Guyana with Jim Jones, late 1900s, they failed. Even most of the slaves who had successfully escaped to Canada returned to America after the Civil War; indeed, many of those brave men who fled, returned to fight for freedom DURING the Civil War. There was the Marcus Garvey 's "back to Africa " movement that was sabotaged both in America and in Liberia, by governments' intrigues. Liberia, its intended destination in the 1920s, sold the large acreage allotted to to Garvey's UNIA to Firestone Rubber Company. Moreover, The Universal Negro Improvement Association's two ships were also insufficiently unseaworthy to sail due to tampering, by enemies, some say. Some smaller groups have quietly slipped away to various other spots, without fanfare, like the Original African Hebrew Nation of Jerusalem who went to Israel via Liberia in the 1960s under the leadership of the late Ben Ammi, formerly of Chicago, Illinois . From the foregoing, one thing is clear: Our destiny is here. This was decided long ago in 1817 in Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where 3,000 free black men, under such leaders as Richard Allen, Robert Purvis, and others, refused the enticements of the colonizers to leave America, and their enslaved brethren, for Liberia in a unanimous vote, with no opposition! It's already a done deal. America is our home. Period!