Gorée
Island in Dakar, SenegalWikipedia
11
MENTIONS
7
EPISODES
6
PODCASTS
Search complete. 11 mentions across 7 episodes found for "Gorée".
Sep 16, 2026
Akinsanya KambonGUEST
And I told him about the piece.
Akinsanya KambonGUEST
He said, "Oh, yeah, yeah." He said, "That's Koumba Ka, still." I said, "Koumba Ka, still?" I said, "What is that?" He says, "That's the female wailing spirit of Goree Island, where they had the birthing room for the women that were pregnant." Oh, my God, man.
Akinsanya KambonGUEST
That, [laughs] that, the...
Akinsanya KambonGUEST
I said, "Damn, I don't know where this is coming from, but it's coming from someplace." I didn't really realize where it actually came from until 1994 when I actually did go to Goree Island.
Akinsanya KambonGUEST
Well, I went before that, but I went to Elmina Castle in Ghana.
Akinsanya KambonGUEST
I went to Elmina and Cape Coast Castle, and me and my wife went in there.
Akinsanya KambonGUEST
He said, that's Cumba Castile.
Akinsanya KambonGUEST
I said, Cumba Castile? I said, what is that? He says, that's the female wailing spirit of Goree Island.
Akinsanya KambonGUEST
where they had the birthing room for the women that were pregnant.
Akinsanya KambonGUEST
Oh, my God, man.
John GreenHOST
St. Louis.
John GreenHOST
And at a town called Gorée, both in Senegal.
John GreenHOST
Why? Well, trade, of course.
John GreenHOST
Senegal was the main source of gum arabic, which is notable for many reasons, but most importantly, it is a key ingredient in the Diet Coke and Mentos phenomenon.
SandraNARRATOR
It has been wrongly alleged that Gonzalo Coelho was the chief leader, but Varnhagen gives almost proof that Don Nuno Manuel was in command of the expedition.
SandraNARRATOR
They took a southern course and stopped several days at Bezeguiche, or Bezenegue, the site of the present Gori, a little below Cape Verde on the west coast of Africa.
SandraNARRATOR
Thence they sailed southwest and a quarter by south and reached Brazil on August 16th.
SandraNARRATOR
the Feast of St. Roche, for which reason they named the headland Cape St. Roque.
Inem RichardsonGUEST
So there was four, they call it the quatre communes, the four parts of Senegal.
Inem RichardsonGUEST
It was in Dakar, Gorée, Rufisque, and Saint-Louis.
Inem RichardsonGUEST
These are the four places in Senegal where somebody, an African, could become an évolué, evolved, to become, you know, adopt the status of a Frenchman.
Inem RichardsonGUEST
All this is to say that the struggle of Senegal is that it has more class stratification than other parts of the Sahel.
Stacey AllenGUEST
Like, oh, this, what if we get, like, in many ways, I kind of went into a mini panic.
Stacey AllenGUEST
Like, what if we get stuck here? What happens? And then when we arrived there, what felt, in addition to like the emotional pull that understanding what our ancestors went through in that middle passage, it was also coming to terms with the hustle and bustle of Goree Island.
Stacey AllenGUEST
And in many ways, Goree Island is a tourist attraction.
Stacey AllenGUEST
So like making sense of that in your mind, like, you know, this is something that happened to our ancestors, but this land has also been repurposed, if you will, utilized for a different purpose.
Stacey AllenGUEST
And how do you make sense of that? And it's actually grappling with that is what I had to make sense of Galveston.
Stacey AllenGUEST
We know that Juneteenth started in Galveston, right? I think that it is critical for us to make that pilgrimage, make that return.
Stacey AllenGUEST
Not only is Galveston the home of Juneteenth, Galveston is the largest port that received our ancestors west of the Mississippi, right? So just like I got the chance to take a beautiful trip to Senegal and I spent time in Goree Island where a lot of the slave castles was.
Stacey AllenGUEST
And as you can imagine, that was an emotional journey.
Stacey AllenGUEST
and spiritual transformative experience.
7 MINS LATER
Stacey AllenGUEST
So you have to take a ship, like a boat, a ferry, if you will, to get to Glory Island, right? Because it's not on the mainland.
Stacey AllenGUEST
So even as soon as you step onto the ship, for me, I have to have full embodied experience.
Stacey AllenGUEST
I could feel my gut dropped, like, oh, this, what if we get, like, in many ways, I kind of went into a mini panic, like, what if we get stuck here? What happens? And then when we arrived there, what felt, in addition to, like, the emotional pull that understanding what our ancestors went through in that middle passage, it was also coming to terms with the hustle and bustle of Goree Island.
Stacey AllenGUEST
And in many ways, Goree Island is a tourist attraction.