Clinton Hopes to Make Inroads With African-Americans
African Appeal at Home
 

 


JoSephIII's PROFILES OF AFRICAN NATIONS  

 

 






“We go back with a meaningful capacity to help both America and the African family.”
—Jesse Jackson

By Sonya Ross
The Associated Press
W A S H I N G T O N, March 21 — President Clinton’s 12-day visit to Africa represents, for Mel Foote, the one thing black activists on both continents have sought through the ages: respect.
     “I’m sure Marcus Garvey and Kwame Nkrumah are smiling today,” said Foote, speaking of the leader of Harlem’s back-to-Africa movement of the 1920s and the Ghana’s founding president.
     Starting Monday in Ghana, warm, enthusiastic crowds are expected to greet Clinton on the longest trip to Africa by a U.S. president. The trip is designed to establish a new economic and political relationship between the United States and Africa and to show Americans a side to Africa other than famine, disease and war.

A New Africa
“I hope to introduce Americans to a new Africa, a place where democracy and free markets are taking hold,” Clinton said Saturday as he opened a national his town-hall meeting about Social Security.
     The trip also is seen as a smart move at home, a symbolic journey to their roots for many of the 34 million black Americans that could create opportunities for them to help Africa, to bring full circle a legacy of suffering and denial as descendants of African slaves.
     Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson compared the feeling to the biblical story of Joseph, who was cast out from his family, sold into slavery and ultimately returned to help his family.
     “We who were taken or sold into slavery … have become the Josephs of this situation,” Jackson said. “We go back with a meaningful capacity to help both America and the African family.”

Just What Clinton Wants
That response by black Americans is what Clinton is hoping for, White House spokesman Mike McCurry said.
     “The president thinks of the kinds of opportunities that will come when we see African-American CEOs here in the United States, or African-Americans who have worked their way through the corporate ladder, going to Africa, engaging with their counterparts as part of this new effort,” McCurry said.
     “It is uniquely, the president believes, a possibility for America that we can help lead this global economic revolution by using that diversity that we are as we reach out to these regions of the world that are beginning to expand.”
     In return, black Americans want the credibility that Clinton’s travels can give to their efforts to become an influential lobby for “the motherland,” much as Jewish organizations advocate for Israel.
     “It’s something they can point to with pride,” said Foote, a Washington lobbyist for African issues. “African-Americans will never be respected until Africa is respected. They don’t hear about us. They hear about those on the fringe. The image we have of them is very negative.”

 

Genesis 37:23 - 28
And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, [his] coat of [many] colours that [was] on him; And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit [was] empty, [there was] no water in it.  And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry [it] down to Egypt.  And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit [is it] if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?
Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he [is] our brother [and] our flesh. And his brethren were content.  Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty [pieces] of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.

Genesis 45:1 - 8
Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren.  And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard.  And Joseph said unto his brethren, I [am] Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence.   And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I [am] Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.  Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.  For these two years [hath] the famine [been] in the land: and yet [there are] five years, in the which [there shall] neither [be] earing nor harvest.   And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.  So now [it was] not you [that] sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.