From LA Times
The president and his family visited a small slave house on Goree Island off the coast of Dakar, the nation's capital, where it is said men, women and children were traded, sorted, shackled and weighed before being sent across the Atlantic to the Americas.
The president stared pensively out the "door of no return," described as the exit for those boarding slave ships, while spending about half an hour in the two-story salmon-colored house filled with dark holding cells.
"Obviously, for an African American — and an African American president — to be able to visit this site, I think, gives me even greater motivation in terms of the defense of human rights around the world," Obama said afterward.
"I think more than anything, what it reminds us of is that we have to remain vigilant when it comes to the defense of people's human rights — because I'm a firm believer that humanity is fundamentally good, but it's only good when good people stand up for what's right," he said.
President Obama and the First Family arrive in Dakar, Senegal pic.twitter.com/XuuSdOHTmr
— TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) June 26, 2013
Pres. Obama gives Pres. Sall of Senegal a pretty sweeeet handshake after their press conference. pic.twitter.com/HSm6Jf31nc
— Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) June 27, 2013
President Obama makes "powerful" visit to Goree Island slave-trade house http://t.co/jhDg3v07Ck (Photo: AP) pic.twitter.com/FgJYucqqKp
— msnbc (@msnbc) June 28, 2013
Pres. Obama at a prison cell window at the House of Slaves on Goree Island. FLOTUS is in the background. #Senegal pic.twitter.com/cGyzsLA6jh
— Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) June 27, 2013
President Obama greets kids on Gorée Island in Senegal: pic.twitter.com/Vx7NevnMnA
— The White House (@whitehouse) June 27, 2013
Can't get enough of @FLOTUS Michelle Obama? She's now on @Instagram: http://t.co/3NUHnOH2y4 pic.twitter.com/kpKRKghgrh
— The White House (@whitehouse) June 27, 2013
Next they head to South Africa, for a visit with ailing leader Nelson Mandela.
From Reuters
Obama is in the middle of a three-country tour of Africa that the White House hopes will compensate for what some view as years of neglect by the administration of America's first black president.
Before departing Dakar, Obama was scheduled to meet with farmers and local entrepreneurs to discuss new technologies that are helping farmers and their families in West Africa, one of the world's poorest and most drought-prone regions.
But it was Mandela, the 94-year-old former South African president who is clinging to life in a Pretoria hospital, who will dominate the president's day even before he arrives in Johannesburg.
Asked on Thursday whether Obama would be able to pay Mandela a visit, the White House said that was up to the family.
"We are going to completely defer to the wishes of the Mandela family and work with the South African government as relates to our visit," deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters in Senegal.
"Whatever the Mandela family deems appropriate, that's what we're focused on doing in terms of our interaction with them."
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