The journey into slavery began here

You are 15 years old and you are the first person in line staring down this tunnel at Fort Metal Cross on the west coast of Africa in the year 1690. The line is long, the shackles on your neck, feet, and hands hurt. You haven't eaten for days. All you know about this place is people who leave here go to a large boat sitting off shore and are never seen again. These white men with their guns are everywhere and you have seen them torture and kill other Africans. Rumors are that these people will eat you once you get on the boat. You feel you will never see your family again. You are right. Little do you know you are headed west to a land no one in Africa has ever seen, nor ever returned from. You will spend the rest of your life working for someone else and receive nothing in return. You will never see Africa again. You will be the parent of people named Sojurner, Fredrick, Martin, Harriet, Marcus, Trayvon, Michael, Henry, Crispus, Nat, Denmark, Malcolm, Nina, Jesse, George, Emmett, Levi, and Booker. You will survive. Your progeny will do great things in this strange new world. They will receive little if any credit for any of it. They will be enslaved, murdered, hung, burned at the stake, raped, and abused for generations. You are African, and this is where it began.