GOREE ISLAND, Senegal (AP) — US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen paid a solemn visit Saturday to the salmon-colored house on an island off Senegal. that’s one of the most recognized symbols of the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade that trapped tens of millions of Africans in captivity for generations.
Yellen, in Senegal as part of a 10-day trip Destined to rebuild economic relations between the US and Africa, it was housed in the building on the island of Gorée known as the House of Slaves and overlooked the “Door of No Return”, from which the slaves across the Atlantic.
They led her on a tour of various hallways and tight spaces in the house, shaking her head in disgust at what she was told about the economics of how slaves were valued.
“Gorée and the transatlantic slave trade are not just a part of African history. They are also part of American history,” Yellen later said in brief remarks during his visit.
“We know that the tragedy did not stop with the generation of humans that were taken from here,” he added. “Even after slavery was abolished, black Americans, many of whom can trace their descent through ports like this one in Africa, were denied the rights and freedoms promised to them by our Constitution.”
Later, in an interview Speaking with The Associated Press, Yellen said that while promoting diversity and racial equality is a key goal, “the administration has not accepted reparations as part of the response.”
The economic benefits that major slave-trading nations, including the United States, reaped over hundreds of years at the cost of unpaid labor could run into the tens of trillions of dollars, according to research. about trade.
And in the US, African slaves and their children helped build the nation’s most famous institutions, including the White House and Capitol Hill, according to the White House Historical Association.
Yellen acknowledged the ongoing ramifications of that brutal past in her public comments.
“Both in Africa and in the United States, while we have made great strides, we still live with the brutal consequences of the transatlantic slave trade,” he said.
In a guest book for the home, he wrote that it served as “an important reminder that the histories of Africa and the Americas are intimately connected. While I am pained by their past, I am also heartened by the vibrant community I have seen here. I take from this place the importance of redoubling our commitment to fight for our shared principles and values of freedom and human rights wherever they are threatened: in Africa, in the United States and around the world.
Yellen’s trip to the island is one that many dignitaries have taken, including former presidents Barack Obama and bill clinton and Nelson Mandela of South Africa. Today, the island of Gorée is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Yellen’s stop there during a trip aimed at revitalizing US-Africa economic relations evoked the massive costs of the slave trade. There has been a resurgence in interest in determining the true cost of slavery on affected generations.
In recent years, the House Financial Services Committee has studied how American banks and insurance companies benefit. of the practice of slavery before it was outlawed in 1865. There have also been hearings on the study and development of repair proposals in the United States.
In the AP interview, Yellen said the administration was “working in many ways in communities of color and low-income communities to try to bring in more capital to advance lending and other things,” she said. “It’s a critically important target.”
