The Roll Call at Elmina Castle

In 1998, a group of African American pastors stood inside the dungeons of Elmina Castle on the coast of Ghana — the oldest European slave-trading post in sub-Saharan Africa. For over three centuries, captured men, women, and children from dozens of West African tribes passed through its Door of No Return, shipped to plantations across the Americas and Caribbean. One pastor in the group, overwhelmed by the weight of that place, began to sing.…