My father, an uneducated laborer born in 1894, was a Pan-Africanist and instill in his children a sense of being connected with the land of our ancestors. Small wonder that I finally managed to travel to that amazing continent, first to Ghana and eventually to Malawi. In Ghana, I felt and was made to feel, that I was "home", a feeling I have seldom if ever experienced in America.

Not only did I witness the brutal poverty that has become the main feature of any story about Africa, but I witnessed in Ghana a people with a living generous spirit, language, and cultural traditions. I was jealous!. In southeastern Africa, I beheld the wonders of nature as I viewed the great falls in Zimbabwe and visited a game reserve.

Like Gates, I too knew that Africa had a rich history and has given the world much more than just its enslaved son and daughters. It is about time that other too knew it.