As the trump machine steams ahead, more African Americans talk of "Blaxit" or exiting the United States of America. For many, including myself, moving abroad remains merely a form of escapism, perhaps even a pipe dream. Historically, past mass Black migration efforts have not resulted in a sizable mass migration—only 4,571 emigrated from the United States to Liberia between 1820 and 1843. Only 1,819 survived.

Let's look at two of other movements. Prince Saunders nurtured the first that we will view. He advocated emigration to the then newly independent Haiti. Martin Robison Delany led the second effort that we will view. He encouraged African Americans seeking freedom to find it in Mexico, South America, or the then wilderness of California.

Prince Saunders (1775-1839) was born in Connecticut and died in the Kingdom of Haiti. In December 1818, he attended the American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and Improving the Conditions of the African Race. As an adviser to King Christophe of the Kingdom of Haiti, he encouraged emigration to Haiti.

Saunders made these suggestions even after the Haitians defeated the Spanish, British, and French and freed the enslaved in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Many surmise that African Americans preferred the liberty they had in America versus emigration to the newly liberated Kingdom of Haiti, ruled by King Christophe.

Martin Robison Delany (1812–1885) is considered the father of Pan Africanism. He made many observations in his book, "Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States" (1852). The following is what Delany had to say about Black emigration, in his own words:

"The writer, within the past few years, and as early as seventeen years ago, then being quite young, and flushed with geographical and historical speculations, introduced in a Literary Institution of Young Men, the subject of Mexican, California, and South American emigration. [I] was always hooted at, and various objections raised: one on account of distance, and another that of climate.

[I have] since seen some of the same persons engage themselves to their White American oppressors, officers in the war against Mexico, exposing themselves to the changes of the heat of day and the damp of night, risking the danger of the battlefield, in the capacity of servants. And had the Americans taken Mexico, no people would have flocked there faster than the Colored people from the United States. The same is observed of California."

I recall asking an English person about her move to The Gambia during the English winters and the possibilities of her getting ill while on Africa's Smiling Coast. She said her children are not too fond of her decision to live in The Gambia for six months a year, but that she had to die somewhere. I have not reached the mental state she is in. However, spending time investigating a move to

The Gambia helped me reach my retirement with my sanity intact. At retirement, doctor visits increased, and the reality of the Gambian health system sank in.

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Note: AGING AFRICA A wave of longevity is sweeping across the continent. It isn’t ready.