A visit to the Elmina Slave Dungeons deeply affected ELCA member Judith Roberts.


By Judith Roberts I


n July 2012, I made a pilgrimage to Elmina Slave Dungeons in Ghana, West Africa. As a descendant of


enslaved African people, this jour- ney was part of my emotional and spiritual journey toward healing the wounds of racism. I serve as director for ELCA


racial justice ministries. As a person of color, my racial identity has been shaped within a Eurocentric domi- nant culture. In the telling of U.S. history, the experiences and strug- gles of people of color have been marginalized or missing all together. In my work, I have analyzed how policies and practices compounded by relationships and rules across institutions have systematically privileged white people and disad- vantaged people of color. None of this prepared me for


what waited behind the walls of Elmina’s faded white facade. Te U.N. designated Elmina as a


site of major historical significance in remembering the evils of the transatlantic slave trade. Origi- nally named São Jorge da Mina (St. George of the Mine) by the Portu- guese in 1482, Elmina is the oldest European-constructed building in sub-Saharan Africa. Tough referred to as a “castle,”


Perspective: 34 www.thelutheran.org Elmina Remembering


Elmina was actually a fort with dungeons that held more than 1,000 African men, women and children captive for several months. Abducted from their families and villages, people were crammed into dark, dank, overcrowded holding cells to await the arrival of slave ships that would carry them far away like cargo. At the peak of the trans- atlantic slave trade, 60 such forts dotted the West African coastline. Africans typically were abducted


from interior countries and marched to Elmina on a journey


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