President Obama Delivers Tough Love, Pledges Partnership in Ghana

ACCRA, Ghana, July 11, 2009 — -- In a robust speech at the Kotoka International Airport shortly before departing Ghana after a whirlwind 22-hour visit, President Barack Obama described how his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa as president had real poignance for him.

"As somebody whose father comes from Africa, obviously this visit has been particularly meaningful for me," Obama said.

A source close to the president said the trip was particularly meaningful to Obama for two personal reasons. First, "It t meant a lot to him" to visit the Cape Coast Castle, a former slave port, with his daughters "and to teach them about what happened there."

Second, the president believes that because of his unique status as the first African-American U.S. president, he has a "more powerful voice," the source said, when pushing African nations to get their own houses in order by embracing democratic, good governance and anti-corruption reforms.

Shortly after visiting the Cape Coast castle, the president told the local crowd -- comprised of thousands of Ghanaians and Peace Corps workers gathered at the airport -- that the images of his visit were lasting.

"I'll never forget the image of my two young daughters, the decedents of Africans and African-Americans walking through those Doors of No Return and then walking back through those Doors of Return," the president said. "It was a remarkable reminder that while the future is unknown, the winds always blow in the direction of human progress."

Standing with Ghanaian President John Atta Mills, in closing remarks which at times felt more like a campaign speech, President Obama reaffirmed to the Ghanaians gathered the "proud" relationship between the U.S. and their country.

"At each point of our visit here, I was reminded of the enduring bond between our nations," he said. "Men and woman taken from this nation help to build my own. Today many of our leading citizens trace their roots to these shores."

The president said their partnership is not just based on shared ideals, but also in "ideals forged in struggles for independence that made our countries who they are. We believe that democracy is not simply a gift from previous generations but a responsibility for each generation to preserve and to pass on. We believe that no one, whether through the influence of poverty, politics, the power of money or the fear of force is above the law."

Ghanaians were eagerly awaiting Obama's visit, but there was some grumbling that the trip was too short and that the president did not hold a large public event in Accra, as former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush did on trips to Ghana.

"All Ghanians want to see you," President Mills said after his meeting with Obama. "I wish it were possible for me to send you to every home in Ghana."

U.S. embassies across Africa held screenings of the president's speech in Ghana. In Kenya, the home of Obama's father, the leading cell phone provider coordinated with the State Department to provide streaming video to its 17 million subscribers.

Standing with his family earlier in the day at the Cape Coast Castle, an emotional Obama on Saturday said his daughters needed to see the fortification to be reminded of the evil that exists in the world.

The president called it "particularly important for Malia and Sasha, who are growing up in such a blessed way, to be reminded that history can take very cruel turns," said the president, whose wife is the great-great granddaughter of slaves in South Carolina. "And hopefully one of the things that was imparted to them during this trip is their sense of obligation to fight oppression and cruelty wherever it appears and that any group of people who are degrading another group of people have to be fought against with whatever tools we have available to us."

The president said his tour of the three-story castle was "reminiscent" of his recent trip to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany "as it reminds us of capacity of human beings to commit great evil."

He called it "striking" that "right above one of the dungeons where male captives were kept was a church. And that reminds us that sometimes we can tolerate and stand by a great evil even as we think that we are doing good."

Loudspeakers had been set up outside the castle so the thousands gathered could hear the remarks of the first African-American U.S. president. Tens of thousands lined the streets to the castle from the landing zone where Obama's helicopter from Accra arrived.

Many wearing Obama T-shirts and chanting the president's name, Ghanaians cheered his arrival from rooftops, leaning out of windows, and hanging from scaffolding. At one moment, hundreds began chasing the motorcade until they were stopped by security.

"As Americans, and as African Americans obviously there's a -- there's a special sense that on the one hand this place was a place of profound sadness," said Obama. "On the other hand it is here where the journey of much of the African-American experience began."

At one point in his family's tour of the facility, the guide showed them the Door of No Return, through which slaves would pass, never to return to Africa again. Obama had his arm around his 8-year-old daughter Sasha, while first lady Michelle Obama held hands with 11-year-old Malia.

In remarks to children during February's celebration of Black History Month, the first lady noted that "African-American slaves helped to build this house" in which the first African-American first family of the United States now resides.

The president said today that "symbolically to be able to come back with my family, with Michelle and our children and see the portal through which the diaspora began -- but also to be able to come back here in celebration with the people of Ghana of the extraordinary progress that we've made because of the courage of so many black and white to abolish slavery and ultimately win the civil rights for all people -- I think is, is a source of hope."