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It was another devastating blow for black Africa’s most powerless from the world’s most powerful black American. Like in his 2009 African visit when he visited a former European slave depot in Ghana, during his recently concluded 2013 African tour U.S. President Barack Obama again deemed that the defunct trans-Atlantic slave trade was the only past black African slavery worthy of his attention. While paying homage to the victims of the trans-Atlantic trade is obviously necessary for myriad reasons, the U.S. president failed once more not only to mention Africa’s other historical slave trade, Arab slavery, that also involved millions...

For a black American president on a tour of Africa, it seemed an obvious opportunity for a speech about the evils of slavery. When Barack Obama visited Senegal on Thursday, he headed for Gorée Island, where a crumbling fort is said to have been the key departure point for millions of slaves shipped across the Atlantic. Yet as the president toured the 18th century building and later spoke of how the visit had allowed him to "fully appreciate the magnitude of the slave trade", historians pointed out that it was probably never used for that purpose at all.

Bush's Speech Boosts Reparations Movement With his speech on slavery Tuesday, President Bush has unwittingly boosted the demands by Jesse Jackson and company that modern-day taxpayers be forced to fork over cash to American blacks because of what happened not to them but to their ancestors. "It's probably the closest a U.S. president has come to apologizing," said Walter Fields, publisher of NorthStar Network, a black online news service. Even Bill Clinton backed off on making a P.C. "apology" after a storm of protest shot down the idea. "If we are recognizing this as one of the greatest crimes in...

As President Bush continues to wend his way through a five-day trip to Africa, we can see some things about our country and our special-interest groups and our ideologues as clearly as we have ever seen them. On his first day in Africa, he gave a speech in Senegal from Goree Island, where slaves were gathered and sold to Europeans after being captured by other Africans (something self-righteous Negro Americans ignore at every turn). The speech shocked many because no Republican President since Lincoln has ever seriously addressed slavery or its consequences with such direct eloquence and depth of vision....

There was no domestic political benefit to the speech President Bush gave in Senegal last Tuesday (July 8). African Americans are not likely to abandon their support of the Democratic Party because Bush said the right thing about slavery and its terrible aftermath, though for 100 years following the Emancipation Proclamation slavery's descendants mostly voted Republican in the North and in the South when Democrats were forced to allow them to. The Bush speech - as potent in print as in delivery - was about morality and redemption, two subjects that are this president's strong suit. He delivered his sermon-like...

With his speech on slavery Tuesday, President Bush has unwittingly boosted the demands by Jesse Jackson and company that modern-day taxpayers be forced to fork over cash to American blacks because of what happened not to them but to their ancestors. "It's probably the closest a U.S. president has come to apologizing," said Walter Fields, publisher of NorthStar Network, a black online news service. Even Bill Clinton backed off on making a P.C. "apology" after a storm of protest shot down the idea. "If we are recognizing this as one of the greatest crimes in history, there had to be...

President Bush went to Africa this week and issued a stinging rebuke against the United States' role in the slave trade, but his comments have not set off the firestorm Bill Clinton's offhand apology for slavery provoked when he made a similar trip in 1998. Why not? It's easy to blame politics, but there's more to it than that. Bush isn't known for his eloquence, but the speech he gave Tuesday at Goree Island, Senegal, was one of his finest. "For hundreds of years on this island peoples of different continents met in fear and cruelty," he said, standing in...

Yesterday, standing on a spot that was rendered both infamous and hallowed by the slave trade, President Bush called slavery "one of the great crimes of history." But he didn't stop there. He demonstrated that he sees and understands the theme of redemption woven into history: that is, good can come out of the greatest of evils. The president made his remarks on Goree Island off the coast of Senegal. It was from Goree Island that countless thousands of Africans boarded slave ships bound for America. "At this place," Bush said, "liberty and life were stolen and sold. Human beings...

President Bush went to Africa this week and issued a stinging rebuke against the United States' role in the slave trade, but his comments have not set off the firestorm Bill Clinton's offhand apology for slavery provoked when he made a similar trip in 1998. Why not? It's easy to blame politics, but there's more to it than that.Bush isn't known for his eloquence, but the speech he gave Tuesday at Goree Island, Senegal, was one of his finest. "For hundreds of years on this island peoples of different continents met in fear and cruelty," he said, standing in front...

<p>GOREE ISLAND, Senegal &#8212; President Bush called slavery "one of the greatest crimes of history" yesterday and acknowledged that its legacy still vexes the United States in a somber speech at this former slave port.</p> <p>Mr. Bush said he came to Africa "mindful of past wrongs," yet determined to eradicate the lingering vestiges of racism.</p>

Goree Island, Senegal - US President George Bush made an eloquent speech but did not win many friends during his brief visit to Goree Island off Senegal on Tuesday. "We are very angry. We didn't even see him," said Fatou N'diaye, a necklace seller watching dignitaries file past to return to the mainland at the end of Bush's tour. N'diaye and other residents of Goree, site of a famous slave trading station, said they had been taken to a football ground on the other side of the quaint island at 6am and told to wait there until Bush had departed,...

Slave Descendants in Reparations Lawsuit Applaud President Bush's Speech at Goree Island in Senegal 7/8/03 7:14:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk Contact: Deadria Farmer-Paellmann of the Restitution Study Group, 917-365-3007 NEW YORK, July 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- "I applaud President Bush's statement made today on Goree Island that slavery was 'one of the greatest crimes in history'. Our lawsuit against 19 blue-chip corporations for slavery reparations is based on this fact," said Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuits filed for reparations from blue-chip corporations. As with President Bush, international law recognizes that slavery was a crime...

<p>GOREE ISLAND, Senegal - American slavery was one of history's greatest crimes, President Bush said Tuesday at the very spot where hundreds of thousands of Africans were bought and sold like cargo.</p> <p>Embarking on a five-nation tour of Africa, Bush also edged toward sending U.S. troops to help end a three-year civil war in Liberia, a western African nation founded by freed American slaves.</p>

<p>DAKAR, Senegal — President Bush paid tribute to former slaves Tuesday, visiting Senegal (search)'s "point of no return" for many Africans bound for early America's shores.</p> <p>Bush then boarded Air Force One (search) for South Africa, the next stop in his five-day, five-nation African tour.</p>

<p>GOREE ISLAND, Senegal, July 8 -- President Bush, on the first leg of his five-day African tour, said today that the United States would participate in restoring peace to the violence-torn West African nation of Liberia. Just two hours after arriving on the continent, the president said, "We'll participate in the process" of maintaining a ceasefire. He did not promise to send troops to the country, but his remarks were the closest he has come to committing the American military. "We're in the process of determining what is necessary to maintain the ceasefire and to allow for a peaceful transfer of power," the president said after a meeting with a group of West African leaders here.</p>

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. President and Madam First Lady, distinguished guests and residents of Goree Island, citizens of Senegal, I'm honored to begin my visit to Africa in your beautiful country. For hundreds of years on this island peoples of different continents met in fear and cruelty. Today we gather in respect and friendship, mindful of past wrongs and dedicated to the advance of human liberty. At this place, liberty and life were stolen and sold. Human beings were delivered and sorted, and weighed, and branded with the marks of commercial enterprises, and loaded as cargo on a voyage without return....

Bush Calls Slavery Historic 'Great Crime' On Visit to Senegal, President Bush Calls Slavery One of History's 'Greatest Crimes' The Associated Press GOREE ISLAND, Senegal July 8 — President Bush paid homage Tuesday to African slaves who passed through the port here, calling slavery "one of the greatest crimes of history" that nonetheless stirred America's commitment to freedom. "Liberty and life were stolen and sold," Bush said after touring a centuries-old house that was used as a processing center for countless thousands of Africans who were herded aboard ships that took them into slavery in America. "Human beings delivered, sorted,...

GOREE ISLAND, Senegal (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) made an eloquent speech but did not win many friends during his brief visit to Goree Island off Senegal on Tuesday.   "We are very angry. We didn't even see him," said Fatou N'diaye, a necklace seller watching dignitaries file past to return to the mainland at the end of Bush's tour. N'diaye and other residents of Goree, site of a famous slave trading station, said they had been taken to a football ground on the other side of the quaint island at 6 a.m. and told to wait...

The curator of the slave house on Gorée Island, just off Dakar at Africa's westernmost tip, is well used to famous visitors. "The Pope, Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton," says Joseph Ndiaye, 79, reeling off the names in his office, bedecked with paraphernalia from the days when the island served as a prison for hundreds of slaves awaiting transportation to the New World. Since serving as a parachutist with the Senegalese army during the Second World War, Mr Ndiaye has made the slave house his life's work, a site of pilgrimage, he calls it, for European, American and African visitors. Tomorrow...

   Sat 5 Jul 2003 Bush billions designed to buy stability Fred Bridgland SURELY no more symbolic site can be imagined for the beginning of the first visit to Africa by a Republican president. The "Door of No Return", on the tiny Senegalese offshore island of Gorée, is the oak one through which passed many of the 20 million black African men, women and children who were sold into slavery. Yet it is here, amid the memories of chains and shackles, at the door that was carved and erected in the same year as the United States’s independence, 1776,...