On Departure for my 52nd Trip to Egypt

I leave for Africa tomorrow for a 30-day journey to the Motherland.

I’ll be making my 52nd trip to Egypt, conducting my 22nd Study Tour and leading the 8th season of excavations as Director of the ASA Restoration Project.

At the end of the month, my daughter Atlantis and seven members of my group will travel to Sudan and visit the ancient ruins built by the Kushites over 2500 years ago.

Invariably, whenever I travel to Africa (and particularly Egypt) I’m always asked, “Is it safe?” As a Black man, born in America, I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, “I am safer in the continent of Africa than I am in my own country.”

Police kill Black people every single day in this country and there is no national outcry.

Is this state sponsored terrorism?

Do Black lives really matter?

I leave for Africa tomorrow. I will feel safer in cities in Egypt and Sudan than I would in Charleston, Baton Rouge, Minnesota, Southeast D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, New York, Stanford, Philadelphia, Detroit or Flint.

I’m glad I’ll be out of the country during the Republican National Convention and pray that there will be a country to return to on August 6.