Like many blacks in the United States, Oprah Winfrey is proud of her African ancestry. Within every African American lies a pure African—one whose blood lines are not “diluted” by interracial integration or rape committed by whites during slavery—a DNA signature strong enough to link African Americans back to their specific ancestral home in Africa.
According to the brilliant PBS documentary “African American Lives” hosted by Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., Winfrey—one of the richest, most influential and most popular people in the world—originally descends from Liberia, one of the poorest and most war-torn countries on Earth. She purportedly originates from the Kpelle ethnic group, one of 16 of Liberia’s major ethno-linguistic groups.
Liberia was unwittingly created in the early 19th century by the U.S. government and the American Colonization Society, a private association of Southern slave owners and so-called abolitionist elements to rid the United States of free blacks who were deemed “idle, useless and mischievous.” It was not a country founded by freed slaves, as has been popularly reported, but rather initially populated by them under the authoritarian rule of the ACS. These blacks later declared independence from the ACS in 1847, creating the Liberian state.
The four-hour multipart series investigates and reconstructs African-American history through genealogy and DNA testing. The show’s subjects included several other black notables, including Quincy Jones, Whoopi Goldberg and Chris Tucker.
Assuming that Winfrey’s DNA testing is correct, there are a few issues that Gates and his team of investigators did not consider. First, most Liberians have mixed blood lines and are of indigenous Liberian and Americo-Liberian stock. Hence, Oprah’s DNA match may come from a DNA strand that was drawn from an Americo-Liberian rather than a “purely” indigenous Liberian, particularly because some of the original Americo-Liberian settlements were on Kpelle land. Second, since many blacks who “migrated” to Liberia—many from Mississippi—originally came from Liberia, where they were taken away as slaves, Winfrey may have double roots in Liberia. Third, Winfrey’s Liberian lineage may be traced to those black Mississippians who were descendants of slaves from other West Africa locales and were sent back to Africa/Liberia by the Mississippi Colonization Society. That group in 1838 established an independent territorial-government called Mississippi in Africa that later joined the Commonwealth of Liberia in 1841. Whatever the case may be, Winfrey has roots in Africa’s oldest Republican-style state, Liberia.
It is ironic that during the same period that Winfrey learned of her Liberian ancestry, Liberia became the first African country to elect a woman as president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. I would savor the opportunity to witness Winfrey, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi Frazier and Johnson-Sirleaf, a descendant of African Americans, work together to rebuild Liberia.
What does it mean for Liberia that Forbes magazine’s most powerful celebrity in the world descends from the country, and what impact will it have on Winfrey?
Because Winfrey openly embraces her Liberian ancestry, it will give renewed inspiration and hope to Liberians, particularly women and children, who were brutalized by nearly 14 years of civil war (1989-2003). Also, Winfrey could serve as a U.N. goodwill ambassador to Liberia or otherwise lobby the United States to provide more development aid and foreign investment opportunities to Liberia.
No matter what Winfrey does or does not do, Liberians will embrace her and give her what every conscious African American dreams of: a loving connection to their original homeland
