Ghana’s 2019 initiative marking four hundred years since the first recorded arrival of enslaved Africans in Virginia in 1619.
It invited people of African descent across the diaspora to come to Ghana, and a great many did. It was followed by Beyond the Return, a longer-term programme.
Its practical legacies:
- A significant increase in diaspora tourism and permanent relocation
- Grants of the Right of Abode and of citizenship to numbers of diaspora applicants
- Detty December as an established season
- A visible community of returnees in Accra, particularly in East Legon, Cantonments and Osu
The Cape Coast and Elmina castles are the sites most closely associated with it, and for many visitors they are the reason for the journey.