Ouidah

Erected on the beach in front of me stood a massive arch, recalling the splendor of l'Arc de Triumph in Paris, complete with a processional path up and through its massive center. Through the arch stood the ocean, sparkling blue as it had four hundred years ago, when millions of people were taken from their homes and transplanted thousands of miles away in the Americas. Engraved on the arch are images of people; former farmers, warriors, smiths, mothers, daughters, fathers, sons; solemnly facing the ocean and what lies beyond, their backs to Africa.
This is la Plage de Non Retour, the Beach of No Return, built as a monument to the the crime of slavery at Benin's former slave trading center, Ouidah.
Benin was not the largest supplier of slaves but the country does rest in the geographic center of the region most impacted by the slave trade, west Africa. Close to ninety percent of African-Americans' ancestors were of west African extraction, a fact which made this trip all the more important to me as this was not just a world history lesson but a walk through America's hidden history, part and parcel of our national story. Nothing can be more moving than to look at the ghosts of our past and slavery is nothing if not the skeleton in America's closet, the ground zero of our infatuation with race and racism.
The sound of the ocean has a waxing philosophic sound, and I was obliged to simply sit and listen. I don't don't know what for, but to just sit and take it all in. We were all on the beach as Americans, no matter what our background was, and this beach is as inextricably linked to what made us a nation as the Old North Church at Boston is, or that lonely field at Gettysburg is. There are times when words cannot do justice, and this is one of those times.