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Roughly 50 years ago Operation Crossroads
Africa’s founder, James H. Robinson, wrote in glowing terms
of an “extraordinary acceleration of [American] interest and
activity in Africa” that was spreading “like wildfire” among
U.S. “citizens groups, colleges, and voluntary agencies.”
Since 1958 when Crossroads Africa was
founded, it has sent approximately 10,000 U.S. volunteers to
Africa for short-term service projects. The U.S. Peace
Corps, founded three years later, has sent more than 70,000
U.S. volunteers to Africa. More than 16,000 U.S. students
and scholars have studied or lectured in Africa since 1949
through the Fulbright program, and thousands more students
and scholars have traveled to Africa through other programs
for academic purposes.
Since the 1800s, thousands of American
missionaries have served in Africa, and hundreds of American
non-governmental organizations have done work in or
pertaining to Africa. Moreover, a million or more Americans
have visited Africa in each of the last five years alone and
almost 500,000 Africans currently visit the U.S. each year.
Connections between American citizens and Africa have grown
increasingly stronger.
Nevertheless, escalating concerns about the
spread of Ebola onto U.S. territory currently threaten to
reverse what have been decades of gains in an evolving
spirit of cooperation and friendship between the peoples of
the U.S. and Africa.
In the urgent effort to halt the now
transatlantic spread of the Ebola virus, one result of
heightened American alarm has been a helpful U.S. medical
sector mobilization and public health sector vigilance.
Another result,
however, of this alertness to
sometimes real and sometimes imagined American public health
vulnerabilities has been damaged relations with Africa and
Africans. This has been caused by what has seemed at points
to be a lack of common cause with Africans caught at the
center of the Ebola crisis.
American relations with Africa are larger
than the present Ebola crisis, not only because of the
political, economic, and cultural interdependence of our
world, but because of deep American historical ties to
Africa. These ties have proceeded from tragic initial
connections between the two continents to, more recently,
the promising horizons signaled in Robinson’s remarks.
Nevertheless, it is possible that American
relationships with Africa could be defined for years to come
by how we respond to the present moment, and we want the
people of Africa to know
that there are many Americans standing in
solidarity with them during this present crisis and beyond.
To show friendship and solidarity with the
peoples of Africa—in ways that go viral in the most
beneficial sense and that indicate the scope of America’s
“wildfire” of “interest and activity in Africa”—those
signing onto this statement:
• Endorse this statement of support for
Africa through our individual or organizational sign-on;
• Commit to circulating or otherwise sharing
this statement among our networks for additional
mobilization of signatures—and upon completion of the
signature phase of the statement commit to circulating or
sharing it with our African friends and networks in the U.S.
and abroad;
• Pledge to make a financial donation (in
whatever amount possible) to one or more organizations
working in West Africa as front-line responders to the Ebola
epidemic (there are many options—see a list of groups at
interaction.org , or go to specific group websites such as
peacecorpsconnect.org/ebola-fund/,or denominational sites
such as ame-church.com, lottcarey.publishpath.com, or
catholicrelief.org); and
• Continue to seek opportunities to
strengthen personal and professional connections to Africa
and its
people.
From: Petitioning The American People by Operations
Crossroads Africa, Transatlantic Roundtable on Religion and
Race, and The African Cultural Exchange
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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