The conference served as a partnership platform dedicated to advancing African sovereignty unified with African Diaspora self-determination, reparatory justice, and the fostering of sustainable solidarity between Africa, its African global diaspora and the world. The theme of the gathering was “The Return to Africa.”
“Indeed, a number of those from the diaspora came through the ‘Doors of No Return’ which they turned into ‘Doors of Return,’ ” said Walker-Smith.
The delegated assembly provided an intentional space for dialogue, affirmation of faith, strategic policy formation, and community-led action.
Rev. Dr Walker-Smith and Rev. Frank Chikane, former moderator of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA), co-organized the conference with an International Committee of representatives from the various regions of the world and a South African-based Host Committee. This intentional space for dialogue became a gathering that included delivery of a Women’s Day Declaration as well as a Full Vision and Declaration of the General Conference.
“We saw the increasing conditions around femicide and gender-based violence and we could not go without a pre-women’s conference,” said Walker-Smith. “We made it a priority.”
Among the keynote speakers was the first woman president of the All-Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), Right Rev. Lydia Nesahngwe, who presented on “Africa Intelligence;” His Holiness Most Rev. Dr. Rufus Okikiola Ostelu, WCC president from Africa; WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Jerry Pillay; the first elected woman president of an African nation, Liberia, Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; former president of South Africa, His Excellency Thabo Mbeki; former president of the first Black Republic, Haiti, His Excellency Jean Bertrand Aristide; and president of South African Council of Churches Bishop Sithembele Sipuka (Roman Catholic Diocese of Mthatha).
Walker-Smith also commended the powerful presence of young people at the conference.
“We’re walking into a whole new era of Pan-Africanism with all and for all,” she said. “We understand this is a vision for the world. We understand that when repair comes to those who have been horrendously affected by the ills, everyone has an opportunity to be healed.”
Chikane said that the Africa and African Diaspora Conference was not only a gathering that included high-level academics and faith leaders. “This was about getting grassroots people from the diaspora globally and Africans on the continent,” he said. “We wanted to be able to get people to organize themselves, engage with each other, learn from each other.”
Chikane said that “when I met the delegation from Brazil, they talked about the experience of landing at the airport in South Africa, especially those who put their feet on the continent for the firsts time. They shed tears,” he said. “One of them said: ‘I now feel complete. I have been feeling that I was not complete.’”
For Chikane, helping people talk about the erasing of their history and their knowledge of where they came from was critical. “It was a therapeutic experience,” he said. “The event became a living event among those who were captured, enslaved, and taken to colonized foreign lands as they met with their siblings who remained in the continent and colonized.”
People at the conference came away transformed, he added.
“Nobody came out the same,” he said, adding that in addition to the two declarations, the conference decided to create an international structure with representatives of each region to take this vision forward.
“We want this vision to turn into a movement to mobilize people of African descent on the ground globally, and Africans on the African continent,” he said. “People of African descent and Africans must come together with Indigenous people to reverse damage inflicted by the enslavers’ takers and colonizers.”
