The Founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in the United States (US), Rev. Jesse Jackson, has been coronated as King of The African Diaspora.
Rev. Jesse Jackson was given the title Togbi Jesse Louis Jackson.
He was decorated with beautiful rich Kente fabric, traditional sandals and a crown.
Togbi Jackson was coronated by Togbi Nyaho Tamakloe VI, Miafiaga of the Anlo Kingdom, Paramount Chief of Shime and Kome.
The coronation event was centred on the tradition within the African, Caribbean and African American communities.
It was organised by The Progressive Minds Show (TPMS).
The event, characterised by pomp and circumstance, traditional drumming and dancing and cheering revelers, was an epitome of culture to be witnessed.
Before Togbi Jackson’s coronation, there was a presentation of gifts and blessings from the following African communities in Chicago. They are Senegal, Ethiopia, Mali, Ghana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.
Message
In a short message before the coronation, Togbi Tamakloe VI took the audience through the history of the Anlo Kingdom.
He also spoke about slavery and colonialism.
Togbi Tamakloe requested from the African American community their forgiveness for their forefathers’ roles in the slave trade.
He asked for forgiveness from those directly or indirectly affected by the heinous slave trade.
Those two, he opined, were “the greatest punishments to have been meted out to the African by the Europeans, leaving indelible scars on us.
He indicated to his audience that the Anlo Kingdom was one of the three Kingdoms in Ghana to be recognised by the British, adding that the Kingdom extended from Ghana to Benin, Togo, and parts of Nigeria.
Togbi Tamakloe VI invited all African Americans to return home to their roots and help build a new Africa.
Identity
In her keynote speech, Dr Melinda Harris-Barrow asked Africans to have a new identity and recognise the new paradigm and urge African Americans to return to their ancestral home.
She indicated that the African American community had taken the lead and held its first Convention in Panama, with the intention to visit Africa in the coming days.
For his part, Togbi Jackson recounted his many visits to Africa and Ghana, particularly his work with other African Greats such as the late Nelson Mandela and others to help change the African narrative.
He thanked Togbi Tamakloe VI and the Progressive Minds Show and described the coronation as a significant honour done him.
Rev. Jesse Jackson, born on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, dedicated his life to civil rights issues. His bids for the US presidency in the Democratic Party’s nomination races in 1983–84 and 1987–88 were the most successful by an African American until 2008 when Barack Obama captured the Democratic presidential nomination and went on to win the presidency.
