Leaving the United States to start over in a life abroad in Ghana can be a hard decision to make, but it is a choice more Black Americans have made in the last decade. A New York married couple, Dr. Torian Easterling and civil rights lawyer Diane O. Lucas, say they have decided to embark on a two-year journey with their family as “returnees” to Africa.
One might assume that Easterling, Lucas, and their family are uprooting and moving to Ghana because of the overarching political climate, as many Black expatriates have.
“My connection to the continent really comes out of an ideology, political, social ideology, very akin to Pan-Africanism,” said Easterling, 44. “Even from a young age, there was always this curiosity and yearning to understand more about the continent, moving past any narratives or any fear.”
For years, Ghana’s former President Nana Akufo-Addo actively encouraged Black expats and descendants of enslaved Africans to move back “home.”
He designated 2019 as “The Year of the Return,” marking 400 years since the first enslaved Africans arrived in colonial Virginia in 1619. Ghana’s tourism industry took off, with the government also launching the “Beyond the Return” campaign. However, prominent Black Americans have sought out the idea of Ghana as a homeland well before then, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Maya Angelou, both of whom ultimately moved there in the 1960s.
As deeply active members in the health, legal, and political communities, Easterling and Lucas agreed that the unease many of African descent feel in the U.S. under the Trump administration is palpable, but they say they have been aligned on this dream individually and together as a couple for several years. They started dreaming of moving to Ghana as a family in 2019, but they were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We were very intentional about wanting to live abroad,” said Lucas, 45, who was the Head of Racial Justice Pro Bono at the law firm Davis Polk. “That would be the dream.”
Easterling is the former first deputy commissioner and chief equity officer at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. During his first year in medical school, he said, he traveled with other students to Ghana and returned several times since. He’s also done medical mission work in post-conflict countries, like Liberia and Sierra Leone, helping to rebuild their healthcare systems.
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