One of Ghana’s major tourist attractions is Elmina Castle, the largest and oldest castle involved in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The castle became open to tourists at the same time as Ghana’s independence in 1957. Since then, tourists have been able to walk through the castle and into the dungeons in which African slaves were kept.
These are my photographs from a field trip to Elmina Castle, accompanied by audio of our tour guide, Ato Ashun, as he asks the group to remember the pain of the past and promise not to let anything like it happen again. Ashun wrote a book in 2004 called “Elmina, the Castle & the Slave Trade.”
“Nobody wants this evil to be repeated. And I tell people, ‘Listen, those who fought and they were killed; those who denied themselves food and they died; those who jumped from the boat and they died; they died to protest as well as help those who survived – working all that and survived – survived to tell the story. And at this point, I ask people to keep a moment of silence in memory of all those who went through this process. And after that, be bold enough to say, ‘Never again,’ and don’t just utter some words, but vow in you to do that little thing you can do in your own small way, making sure this evil will never again be repeated.”
