Rashad McCrorey, who runs back-to-Africa tourism company Africa Cross Culture, decided to move permanently to Ghana after a business trip there was cut short by covid-19.
Born and raised in Harlem, the New York-based entrepreneur organizes escorted trips to Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Egypt. In February 2020, McCrorey decided to self-quarantine in Ghana rather than return to the U.S. and he has decided not to go back.
McCrorey is part of a growing number of African Americans who have visited or relocated to Ghana since the West African country designated 2019 as the Year of Return. Ghana commemorated 400 years since the first slave ship arrived in 1619 at the Jamestown colony of Virginia, by courting descendants of the African diaspora to return to the motherland.
“Being in Africa right now and relocating temporary to long term, I feel myself healing. I’m starting to see black people that love unity,” McCrorey told World Star. “It’s like now I’m on the outside looking in.”
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More than 3,000 African-Americans and people of Caribbean descent live in Ghana, according to a 2014 estimate by the UN.
McCrorey said he is making friends with the police in Ghana and feels they are friendlier and more willing to address issues than police in the U.S. Black Americans came out in historic numbers to protest against police brutality after the death of George Floyd while in police custody.
“Only in Ghana I have police friends,” McCrorey said. “In America, I refuse to have police friends no matter what the adversity is. And it comes from the system that people can have altercations and they don’t have to turn into violence. That law enforcement isn’t a villain.”
Living in the mountains of West Africa in a 160-acre garden has helped him escape the historical environmental injustice that caused Black Americans to suffer extreme causalities, McCrorey said.
“How long will I be here? As of now, the plan is indefinitely,” McCrorey told Modern Ghana. “Just like the American Dream, the African Dream isn’t perfect but it is where the ancestors want me to be during this critical point in history.”
