Returns to roots in Africa

1. After a successful political life in the United States, the Mayor of Magnolia is going back to live and work in Tanzania.
2. Inspiration comes from the late Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican political activist who proposed that people of African descent should return to their mother continent.
3. African Tourism Board is campaigning to attract Africans in Diaspora to visit their home continent.

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Respecting his ancestral continent of Africa, the Magnolia Mississippi Mayor resigns and Mr. Anthony Witherspoon last month dedicated his life and business to Africa.

The immediate former mayor of this small Mississippi town said he has moved to Africa to run a tourism business, and he is encouraging other Black people to also consider moving to the continent.

The Associated Press (AP) had reported this ending week that Anthony Witherspoon resigned December 31, 2020, from his Magnolia mayoral post. He had been Mayor since winning a 2014 special election, and he had 6 months remaining to conclude his 4-year term.

Reports said that the former Magnolia Mayor had migrated to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s sprawling commercial capital that was established about 155 years ago, to settle and then operate his business.

Further reports pointed out that Mr. Witherspoon had moved to Africa to settle in East Africa through his personal commitment to live and then run his business on his ancestral continent.

“I am here in the Motherland, creating business partnerships and networks with my brothers and sisters,” Witherspoon said on January 24, 2021, through his Facebook posting.

He is also running a YouTube channel with testimonies of people who have moved to Africa.

Some of those enterprises include early childhood centers, pre-schools, private business colleges, and businesses including Back to Africa Tours, he said.

“The minute you step off the plane into Julius Nyerere International Airport and see the state-of-the-art, world class airport here in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, it will be the beginning of the end of all of the lies that have been fed to you by the Western media about our Mother Africa,” Witherspoon said.

Witherspoon is married to Senator Tammy Witherspoon (Democratic Party), representing the Mississippi State Senate District 38. The couple has two sons.

His wife is still living in Mississippi and serving at the Capitol. The former Mayor said she and the couple’s two sons recently visited him in Tanzania.

Anthony also served as the President of the Mississippi Conference of Black Mayors and Second Vice President of the Mississippi Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials. In May of 2018, he served as an International Observer to the controversial Presidential Elections in Venezuela.

He said that his vision of helping Americans repatriate to Africa is inspired in part by the late Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican political activist who proposed that people of African descent should return to their mother continent.

“I come in with that spirit and at least want to help you explore Africa for yourself,” he said.

The former Mayor’s vision to help Africans in Diaspora to go back to their mother continent has been inspired by various travel and tourism campaigns to attract Americans of the African origin to visit their ancestral continent.

The African Tourism Board (ATB) has been established in South Africa for 2 years now and is campaigning to attract Africans in Diaspora to visit their mother continent.

ATB is now working hard and closely with other travel and tourism partners across the world to promote Africa as a “One Tourist Destination of Choice” in the world, targeting key tourist source markets around the globe.

The primary agenda of ATB is to position Africa as a leading tourist destination through strategically-integrated tourism development and marketing with effective branding and marketing.

African Diaspora heritages are key tourist sites in Africa which ATB is now targeting for promotion and development into the future magnet that would attract Africans in Diaspora to visit, settle, and then invest in Africa.

An African Homecoming is a theme designed by various groups of Africans in Diaspora aimed at exploring and transforming African cultural heritage assets into tourist destinations to attract those people of African descent to travel back to their mother continent and then trace their origin.

The African Tourism Board is an association that is internationally acclaimed for acting as a catalyst for the responsible development of travel and tourism to, from, and within the African region. For more information and how to join, visit africantourismboard.com .

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