Comments on: Photo Gallery: The Cape Coast Castle in Ghana

By: Seneca Godamunne, Jacksonville, FL

Seneca Godamunne, Jacksonville, FL — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:03:24 +0000

Please give us some background information (on TV) about Cape Coast Castle – who built it, for what purposes, and when etc.
My wife and I spent a few days recently in Amsterdam, Holland and while walking about that lovely city, we walked across a big bridge over the Amstel river named the "Blue Bridge" (Blauwbrug). This bridge built in 1884 was decorated with large columns that have sculpted copies of slave ships half way up. Those columns are surmounted by sculpted copies of the Habsburg imperial crown. We were told that the slaves ships were honored here (on these columns) because of the enormous wealth they brought to Amsterdam! What part did Holland play in this terrible trade (another holocaust)? And what is the connection of those activities to the Habsburg crown?

By: may

may — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:13:45 +0000

Hello Anderson, To start with, PLEASE get this right, AFRICA is a CONTINENT not a COUNTRY as some people who live outside Africa refer to it.
It is demeaning and uninformed for western journalists to continually tag a continent of over 50 countries, thousands of languages and millions of people as just one place.Please inform your colleagues @ CNN.
Secondly, would like to thank you for the job you are doing for CNN, keep on forging ahead!!
I'm May, a NIgerian and an avid viewer of CNN.

By: kate

kate — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:11:38 +0000

Jeanette, please get the facts right. The castle was built,owned and run by the british and not the people of Ghana.

By: Jeannette

Jeannette — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:13:50 +0000

Just amazing and moving pictures ...

By: Aida Gonzalez-Jarrin, Queens NY

Aida Gonzalez-Jarrin, Queens NY — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:54:26 +0000

Anderson, Charlie, thank you for the pix. The president's visit to this castle has a most important message to the world. We should never forget tyranny. We should safeguard our freedoms at all costs. Your coverage, as usual, is outstanding. Thanks you.

By: Joe Fattal

Joe Fattal — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:49:53 +0000

Obama should have stayed a little longer, and he and his family should have retrace back the slaves route to the US on his Air Force One. His still playing the race card, even abroad.

By: addo,md

addo,md — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:32:11 +0000

Bravo! AC Ghana is a peaceful country with diversified culture and hope AC you will show part of it to Americans.

By: nanak

nanak — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:59:59 +0000

@Anderson...as many have already mentioned, we would greatly appreciate it if you could reiterate that Obama went to Ghana in Africa, not just "Africa". That said, I would like to correct Jennifer Lawson, that Africa does not have 100 countries, but 54 countries. But the more critical point I would like to raise is that this is not Obama's first trip to Africa. He was in Egypt not too long ago, and that is part of Africa. So either you guys say "his first trip to Africa, south of the Sahara", or you say "his second trip to Africa". Clearly, we need not perpetuate the stereotypes of Africa not including parts of North Africa. Many North Africans are equally proud that Obama came to Ghana.

@Asantehema: I totally agree with Noah. It is very important not only to understand the roots of oppression, but the covert and subtle forms in which it is expressed in society today. Don't delineate your African experience from that of African Americans, if you live in the USA. I always tell my African friends that if you are eating at McDonalds and someone comes to rob the place and a black person is suspected, you and I will be in the lineup. No one would say: "Nah, don't put her in the lineup, she's from Ghana." In America, Black is Black, and Black has a meaning. We should continue to understand that for as much as we strive for racial equality, a color-blind ideology runs the risk of erasing the realities of structural inequalities. As you know, there are many Ghanaians in America you would rather not associate with because "they are not the kinds of Ghanaians you hung out with back home." Same for African Americans - and human beings in general, there is a really wide spectrum of their kind.

@Anderson... spider bite! Sorry oh, sorry!

By: Jerelyne Williams

Jerelyne Williams — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:59:23 +0000

To Asantehema & others of likemindedness:
The scope of your knowledge of the impact of 300 or more years of oppression quite is quite limited. Before shifting blame, try looking at the continuing evolving history of oppression of Blacks. Your readings and schooling have limited your capacity to look further than what goes out as the truth, but in reality is only a fraction of what is true. I will leave you with this ancient fable to reflect on truths and falsehoods: "Truth and Falsehood went for a swim. Falsehood emerged from the water first, dressed in Truth's clothes, and departed. Truth refused to wear the clothing Falsehood left behind, preferring to go naked instead." In the study of American history, and the sacred documents binding the nation in continental union, you will find that much was ignored, shifted to future generations, and never quite made way toward delivering America's promise to all its sons and daughters. Very few have an awareness of the limitations placed on freedoms and limitations to Blacks despite the promises made. Some of what came out of rebuilding the nation following civil strife resulted in blacks having to navigate the tension between formal equality and informal inequality. And so it was that Lincoln failed in the full deliverance of Washington's promise. To get a glimpse of the failure of the deliverance, perhaps a reading of Blackmon's book, ANOTHER KIND OF SLAVERY, and other evolving research can provide some insight into "naked truth' as explained in the fable.

By: KWAKUWUSU

KWAKUWUSU — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:49:35 +0000

Jeanette, which school did you attend? Oh I forgot, American Schools do not teach History neither do they encourage reading anything outside matters concerning the meaningless American pop culture......

The Slave Castles along the Coast of the Atlantic Ocean in West Africa were mostly built by the PORTUGUESE and later taken over by the BRITISH IMPERIALISTS and COLONIALIST to perpetuate their slave trade.

Most of the Slaves were shipped to AMERICA (Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, the Orleans, .....), now the UNITED STATES and the WEST INDIES to work on Tobacco, Cotton and Sugar Cane Plantations under cruel and inhumane conditions.

All the Slaves were owned and traded locally, and used to labor in the cotton fields by White Americans (the WASPS), and the British who were also the colonial masters in this country before George Washington routed them out if I may add, and they profited immensely by the trade and the labor of the slaves.

That is why your White Ancestors and America is blamed for that unfathomable cruelty. ....... And now you want everybody to just forget because you are ignorant of the history and the Slave Tade in America?

By: KRYS

KRYS — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:34:12 +0000

Get agrip people ,In Nazzi Germany there were many slaves taken from many European countries to Germany to work,My Mother was one ane Her entire Family were in work camps they endured abuse,rape ,humilitation and daily beatings.My Father spend five years in Buchenwald taken from Poland at seventeen.He had to work in the ovens area ,You tell Me if that was not slavery?He survived the comp by doing what he was told to do at gun point for five years,let Me tell You he survived bearly phisically but mentally HE never recovered I heard him cry many nights when I was a child.I know that they broke His spirit.Us the kids(3) and Mother survived Him for many years but all of us kids and grandkids witness the strugle of Hers trying to forget and You know she never did.On her dead bed last Nvember She was still afraid of them the nazzis coming to teke Her away.And she was only twelve when She was takin to Germany and passed away at the age of 83 still afraid.

By: Jacqueline, NY

Jacqueline, NY — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:29:22 +0000

If I may, I would like to suggest a good book entitled, 'Things Fall Apart' by Chinua Achebe.

By: SandraWI

SandraWI — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:53:52 +0000

Thank you for posting these pictures. I'm glad your interviewing President Obama in Ghana Anderson.

By: Jacqueline, NY

Jacqueline, NY — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:46:08 +0000

@Mike: ....Also, people are always using the fact that slavery existed in Africa as an excuse for the CAPTURING of Africans to trade into bondage on other continents. But African didn't only enslave other Africans from different countries on the continent. They enslaved Europeans and Asians as well. This action went back and forth.

Slavery at any point in time, in any part of the world can not be excused, but slavery that took place in some countries on the continent we now know as Africa, had, for lack of a better word, an "honor" system. People were not treated like, nor considered to be animals or subhuman. There were wars and such. And, as they say, "all in war is fair." I am not saying that, but one cannot just blurt out, "Oh, but there was slavery in Africa before the white man blah, blah, blah...." as an explanation for the Europeans stripping my people away from our lands, and stripping away our identities, and taking us into bondage, and taking over our land, etc... There is NO excuse for it, whatsoever!

But the reasons, however, were just pure evil, greed, lust and all the impurities of heart, mind and spirit that mankind can possess.

By: Gabe

Gabe — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:28:12 +0000

President Obama you are my God, you have always hit the nail where it belongs to. AC360 I love you and have always watch your honest and genuine coverage. I hope President Obama will stand to his words and will not tolerate african leaders who are murderous, corrupt and egoist. His message was very powerful I love that. But we should also give president Bush credit for give the continent so much money in drugs to fight maleria and AIDS.
God Bless the USA!

By: Jacqueline, NY

Jacqueline, NY — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:48:26 +0000

@Mike: Africa is a continent, not a country. Slavery was practiced in many countries and continents throughout the world from the beginning of time, especially in EUROPE. Slavery that existed in, and among some countries in Africa was not based on color, demoralization and dehumanization of a people. That is a EUROPEAN thing.

By: daniel wintern

daniel wintern — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:40:37 +0000

did u take the pic urself

By: hassan

hassan — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:27:01 +0000

hi Anderson, i am an African who is not interested right now with the political history of slavery, nor that of colonialism. I wish that all Africans and peoples of the world can focus on the unification of Africa. For Africans, to dig themselves out of the hole they are in, they have to unite their resources, their achievements, their strength, their wisdom, etc, to establish a system that will be created by the people, to benefit the people, and maintained by the people. The system have to be just, fair, transparent for the benefit all its people.
I know this sound unrealistic, over simplified, but many Africans hold these basic beliefs and all they have to do is to let it out. Then, we can start the debate and attract better and more realistic ideas.
I am not well educated and i am poor, but i have many ideas, some may be good and some bad, but if anyone can hear it, then they can take it and make it better.
Unite Africa Now
hassan

By: Casey

Casey — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:14:37 +0000

Great pictures. I never wanted to see the Door of No Return but now I want to.

To see hardship, Haiti is the forefront of misery.

Anderson in Africa has a better ring than Anderson in Ghana. Most poeple should know the continent of Africa has 50 countries.

By: Tendai Sean Joe

Tendai Sean Joe — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 10:59:26 +0000

Wow,amazing pictures for real thanx very much for bringing us this.

Obama's trip is not only historic but will alsways be remembered as a day each and every African was proud to belong here.As a former street kid planning a visit to childrens homes in 16 African countries on a motorbike ,Obama's speech yesterday gave me more faith and strength to do what i ma trying to do.I know its like a far fetched dream but its a dream for all the children in Harare,Durfur ,Kinsasha and all over Africa whose voices were not heard yesterday but will be heard in the future.

Child Soldiers,Malnutrition ,poverty and corruption has done more harm than good to our children but whinning wont be a solution.We need to stand up and start making the change.

I lived in the streets,ate from the bins,went back to scholl through wellwishers,jumped the border into South Africa through Kruger National Park,lived in a squatter camp and i searched for myself and realised i was lost in poverty but that was the turning point.Today i stand tall and share hope to all my fellow Africans.

May more light,peace and love shine on Obama!