Rave Africa4
The 11th edition of the International Roots Festival holds in The Gambia between May 9 and May 17 2014.
The International Roots Festival which is a historical, cultural and educational event is designed to encourage peoples of African descent who reside in the Diaspora to further discover, re-affirm and re-embrace their ancestral identity through confronting the physical past of the Trans-Atlantic slavery.
It will be recalled that the late great American historian - Alex Haley who discovered his "Roots" in The Gambian Village of Juffereh, wrote a book based upon his findings which later became a TV Series known to millions as "ROOTS." Also featured in the series was James Island, an Island in the River Gambia which bears the last remains of a Slave Fort where Africans were held captive before they were forcibly put into Slave Ships to embark on a journey to hell.
According to The Gambia's Ministry of Tourism and Culture, for many previous Roots Festival attendees, the experience has been "overwhelming and many return to the UK or the US with a new lease of life, a vibrant positive outlook, a spirit to succeed and an iron-willed conviction to return to The Gambia with friends and relatives as soon as possible."