Andrew AD Wilson

There is a moment in every long conversation when talk stops being progress. “The Prime Minister said it plainly: we have been talking for some time now—what we need is action.” That sentence changed the room. It became a directive. Not a slogan. In a meeting with Ghana’s Minister of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry, Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, the assignment was made clear to the High Commissioner to Ghana: move from alignment to ex*****on. Trade corridors are not built by enthusiasm alone; they are built when authority meets timing and someone is told, unmistakably, do it now. history doesn’t turn on ideas—it turns on moments when the right people decide the moment has arrived.

We have heard the silence of the hills.
The talking drums are hushed,
and the palm trees sway not in dance,
but in lament.

Tell the ancestors to open the gates—
Our sons return,
carried not by glory,
but by grief.

The state, our mother,
wears black cloth stitched with thunder.
She weeps not only for names,
but for the burden they bore—
the hopes they harbored
in their brief, ascending flight.

O Ghana,
you whose heart has long beaten through struggle,
today, your pulse falters.
For even the eagles fall
when the wind betrays the wings.

Let the rivers run slow,
let the markets pause,
let schoolchildren whisper songs of the elders.
For the land has taken back its debt—
and the sky has given no receipt.

This mourning is not of one family.
This is the nation’s bowl of sorrow.

Pour libation to memory.
Carry their names in the calabash of dawn.
For as long as we remember,
they have not truly fallen.

Andrew AD Wilson Consulate & Embassy

The Ashanti, Ghana 🇬🇭 woman who ended up as freedom fighter and heroine in Jamaica. (Gyama ya ka ha)
Her statue is located in Emancipation Park, New Kingston, Jamaica🇯🇲.
Queen Nanny (Nana) of the Maroons was a former slave stolen from the Ashanti Tribe brought to Jamaica during the late 1700s. Maroons were escaped slaves who formed their own independent settlements. Her and her 4 Brothers who were Maroon leaders escaped their plantation and hide in the mountains and jungles in Jamaica.
They created a village in the Blue Mountains where they took slaves after they raided numerous plantations.
Nanny is credited to freeing over 1,000 slaves. Maroon in Latin means wolf. The Spanish called these free slaves "Maroons," a word derived from "Cimarron," which means "fierce’’

More than 80 years before the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower in 1620, An enslaved African 🇲🇦 Estevanico, became the first non-indigenous man to explore Mexico, California, New Mexico, Texas and Arizona.
Estevanico as a slave traveled to the New World with a 600-man Spanish expedition sent to explore the shores of the gulf of Mexico. The expedition was shipwrecked off the coast of what became Texas, and within a year Estevanico and three others were the only survivors of the group of eighty castaways enslaved by Indians. The four managed to escape and convinced friendlier Indians they met that they possessed healing powers. He accepted gifts from many tribes as he traveled across Texas and Mexico on foot for eight years and reached the Gulf of California in 1536. The Rode to Eldorado is based on the journey of Estevanico.

According to Senegalese historian Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, the ancient name of Africa was Alkebulan, which means "mother of mankind" or "garden of Eden". The name was used by the Moors, Nubians, Ethiopians, and other indigenous people.
The name Africa was given to the continent by the ancient Romans and Greeks. Some experts believe that the name Africa comes from two Phoenician words, "friqi" and "pharika", which translate to "corn" and "fruit".
The word "Africa" came into existence in the late 17th century. Initially, it only referred to the northern part of the continent. Around that time, the continent had been colonized, and the Europeans ruled over its people as slaves. They influenced the change of identity from Alkebulan to its present name.

August 2, 1967, "In the Heat of the Night" was released.
Sidney Poitier insisted that the movie be filmed in the North because of an incident in which he and Harry Belafonte were almost killed by Ku Klux Klansmen during a visit to Mississippi. That is why Sparta, Illinois, was chosen for location filming. Nevertheless, the filmmakers and actors did venture briefly into Tennessee for the outdoor scenes at the cotton plantation, because there was no similar cotton plantation in Illinois that could be used.
Poitier slept with a gun under his pillow during production in Tennessee. He did receive threats from local racist thugs, so the shoot was cut short and production returned to Illinois.
The story was set in a hot Mississippi summer, but filmed during autumn in Illinois, many of the actors had to keep ice chips in their mouths (and spit them out before takes) to prevent their breath from appearing on camera during the night scenes.
Several scenes in the film of Virgil and Gillespie facing each other were shot over Sidney Poitier's shoulder, looking down at Rod Steiger, emphasizing the 4 1/2 inch difference in their heights, and giving Virgil a subtle feeling of superiority.
This was the first major Hollywood film in color that was lit with proper consideration for an actor with dark skin. Haskell Wexler recognized that standard lighting used in filming produced too much glare on most black actors and others of dark complexion. He toned down the lighting to feature Poitier with better results.