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Yesterday I shared why my paternal grandfather fled South Carolina in the shadow of racial terror and made his way to Philadelphia. Two of his siblings followed, including his sister Emma, who would become the beloved Aunt Emma of family stories.
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| Student Kwame Nkrumah, would go on to become the 1st Prime Minister of Ghana, surrounded by fellow students at Lincoln University. |
Aunt Emma ran a boarding house in Oxford, Pennsylvania, home to Lincoln University which is one of the two Historically Black Colleges and Universities located in the North. Her boarding house ( think the movie" Lackawanna Blues ", 2005, but on a black collegiate level) was filled almost exclusively with African students studying at Lincoln. Many of them would later become leaders in Africa’s anti-colonial movements.
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| Nnamdi Azikiwe arrived in the United States in 1925 and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Lincoln University by 1930. |
As a teen visiting Aunt Emma in the 1940s, my father was captivated. He had already encountered Philadelphia’s Black professionals and intellectuals, but it was the African students, who were kind, curious, and eager to share stories of their homelands and independence struggles that left, too, an indelible mark on him. Aunt Emma herself was at the center of those conversations, drawing direct links between the Black American freedom struggle and the African liberation movements.
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| Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila is a Lincoln University graduate and the first woman prime minster of Namibia. |
Those summers in Oxford sparked a lifelong openness in my father toward Africa. In our home in the 1970s, I grew up with a poster of Africa’s first post-colonial leaders hanging on the wall in my father's home office. I memorized their names, independence dates, and turned to our Encyclopedia Britannica ( remember those) to learn more. I still remember being 8 years old when S. McDowell Shelton, a Philadelphia church leader and family acquaintance, returned from a world tour where he had met Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. Suddenly the names on that poster felt alive, reachable. I realized Africa was not just history on a wall, but a living place one could travel to, learn from, and love.
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| Me and crew, with Carla Boykin, 1981, Maseru, Lesotho |
By 1981, through Operation Crossroads Africa, I found myself in Southern Africa, visiting Lesotho, apartheid South Africa, Botswana and a very newly independent Zimbabwe. That summer reshaped my life. Years later and many African countries explored, I married and settled in Côte d’Ivoire. My father finally fulfilled his dream when he visited me in West Africa several times, using it as a launching point to explore more of the continent.
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| My dad, the best dad, Theodore McBride, me and little Sojourner, in 1999, visiting the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, in Yamoussoukro, Cote d'Ivoire. |
All of this, starting with Aunt Emma’s boarding house, the kindness of strangers, the courage of students, the shared struggles of Black Americans and Africans, reminds me of the power of welcome. The power of imagination. The power of believing in one another’s futures.
That is exactly why I ask you to join me in supporting the campaign for Yero’s legal defense. His journey, too, is part of this long tradition of seeking freedom, safety, and dignity. Just as my father’s life was transformed by the generosity of African students at an HBCU, we can transform a life today by showing solidarity across borders.
All funds go directly to his attorney’s office. Please give what you can; every gift matters. Here is the link: https://gofund.me/ea76afe0 Please encourage others to give.
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