Rodney Bass
Founder and Director
Rites of Passage Program
In 1994 I visited West Africa for the first time on a missionary journey with my church. During our stay in Dakar Senegal we had the opportunity to visit Goree Island where the infamous slave house and Door of No Return are located. As I stood in the midst of that slave house listening to Uncle Joe the curator and guide about the concept and condition of slavery, I began to understand that as a grown educated African American man I knew very little about my heritage or the strong enduringrace of people from which I had come.
It had never been taught to me that my people were a strong people and because of there strength they were sought out and capture to become the backbone of the fledgling American economy during the 16,17 and 18 hundreds. 6 to 8 weeks over the ocean locked in 18x24 inch wide spaces chained and shackled. My ancestors endured the middle passage, disease and the whip to become the contributors that help shape the greatest country on the planet.
As my eyes gazed over the slave compound they rested on a parchment that depicted the most current places where slavery existed. I saw the dates of when slavery started and ended, and to my surprise there were areas in Africa where slavery had started and there was no ending date! My eyes filled with tears at the reality that I was living in the 20th century and men were still in chains.
It was there at that instance, that I believe God impressed upon my heart that as an educator I could help young people know more about there beginning and in doing so help them carve out a better path for the future. We can’t know the way to go if we have no understanding of where we come from and how important it is that we’ve made it thus far.
I returned to the States with a desire to develop a program that would assist young people in knowing the truth about their past to help prepare their future. After 10 years of toiling the Rites of Passage program took its maiden voyage to west Africa in 2005, taking 13 student and 4 parents and staff to the Door of no return to invalidate the notion of no return for ever.
To date the Rites of Passage Program has provided this valuable education and life changing trip to West Africa to over 100 students.