Title: An American Daughter in Africa: Land of My Fathers: Era Bell Thompson’s Midwestern Vision of the African Diaspora
Abstract: Era Bell Thompson's Midwestern Vision of the African DiasporaFor weeks, as she traveled through Liberia, the Gold Coast (Ghana), the Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo), and Rhodesia (Zambia and Zimbabwe), Ebony reporter Era Bell Thompson heard stories about apartheid in South Africa.When her plane fi nally landed in Johannesburg in May 1953, she encountered it fi rsthand.Dumbstruck that an African American woman had received an offi cial visa from a government committed to racial segregation, the South African immigration offi cers stared at her with "wonderment."Insisting on holding her U.S. passport, they commanded her to leave South Africa immediately.The North Dakotan ended up taking her passport back-after procuring a train ticket to Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique)-and spent hours waiting at Johannesburg's segregated depot before fi nally leaving the country.Thompson noted that she awoke "the next morning to bright sunshine and a tremendous sense of relief. . . .I felt like Eliza crossing the ice, like Harriet Tubman on the underground railroad, for the train I was riding was taking me out of the land of apartheid to the free soil of Portugal."Allusions to Uncle Tom's Cabin as well as a real life black heroine no doubt signifi ed much about life for blacks in South Africa to Thompson's many readers.Yet upon her arrival in Portuguese East Africa, three hotels turned her away because of her race."The Promised Land indeed!" Thompson later wrote."I could have done no worse in South Africa." 1 Already well known for American Daughter (1946), her memoir of grow-