ABC News, July 11
ACCRA, Ghana — In a robust speech at the Kotoka International Airport shortly before departing Ghana after a whirlwind 22-hour visit, President Barack Obama described how his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa as president had real poignance for him.
...Shortly after visiting the Cape Coast castle, the president told the local crowd--comprised of thousands of Ghanaians and Peace Corps workers gathered at the airport--that the images of his visit were lasting. "I'll never forget the image of my two young daughters, the decedents of Africans and African-Americans, walking through those Doors of No Return and then walking back through those Doors of Return," the president said. "It was a remarkable reminder that while the future is unknown, the winds always blow in the direction of human progress."
Standing with Ghanaian President John Atta Mills, in closing remarks which at times felt more like a campaign speech, President Obama reaffirmed to the Ghanaians gathered the "proud" relationship between the U.S. and their country. "At each point of our visit here, I was reminded of the enduring bond between our nations," he said. "Men and woman taken from this nation help to build my own. Today many of our leading citizens trace their roots to these shores."
Standing with his family earlier in the day at the Cape Coast Castle, an emotional Obama on Saturday said his daughters needed to see the fortification to be reminded of the evil that exists in the world. The president called it "particularly important for Malia and Sasha, who are growing up in such a blessed way, to be reminded that history can take very cruel turns," said the president, whose wife is the great-great granddaughter of slaves in South Carolina. "And hopefully one of the things that was imparted to them during this trip is their sense of obligation to fight oppression and cruelty wherever it appears and that any group of people who are degrading another group of people have to be fought against with whatever tools we have available to us." The president said his tour of the three-story castle was "reminiscent" of his recent trip to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany "as it reminds us of capacity of human beings to commit great evil." He called it "striking" that "right above one of the dungeons where male captives were kept was a church. And that reminds us that sometimes we can tolerate and stand by a great evil even as we think that we are doing good."
"As Americans, and as African Americans obviously there's a--there's a special sense that on the one hand this place was a place of profound sadness," said Obama. "On the other hand it is here where the journey of much of the African-American experience began."
At one point in his family's tour of the facility, the guide showed them the Door of No Return, through which slaves would pass, never to return to Africa again. Obama had his arm around his 8-year-old daughter Sasha, while first lady Michelle Obama held hands with 11-year-old Malia.
...The president said today that "symbolically to be able to come back with my family, with Michelle and our children and see the portal through which the diaspora began--but also to be able to come back here in celebration with the people of Ghana of the extraordinary progress that we've made because of the courage of so many black and white to abolish slavery and ultimately win the civil rights for all people--I think is, is a source of hope."
The president seemed to be overcome with emotion as his made these remarks, pausing to collect his composure. "It reminds us that as bad as history can be, it's also possible to overcome," he said.
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Acknowledging "the tragic past that has sometimes haunted this part of the world," President Barack Obama told Africans that they needed to move beyond historical grievances about colonialism and exploitation by the West to move the continent into the 21st century. "It is easy to point fingers and to pin the blame" for disease and conflict in Africa on others, the president told Ghanaian leaders at the Accra International Conference Center. "Yes, a colonial map that made little sense bred conflict, and the West has often approached Africa as a patron, rather than a partner. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants."
The president made sure that his message of tough love was accompanied by an assertion of his credentials as a direct descendant of Africans. "I have the blood of Africa within me, and my family's own story encompasses both the tragedies and triumphs of the larger African story," he said, detailing how his paternal grandfather, Hussein Onyongo Obama, a cook for the British in Kenya, was called "boy" for much of his life and was imprisoned briefly. The president's father, Barack Obama Sr., illustrated a different lesson--the promise and failure of Africa's renaissance in the 1950s and '60s. The former goat herder "came of age at an extraordinary moment of promise for Africa," and he traveled to the United States for an education. But "tribalism and patronage" in Kenya "for a long stretch derailed his career," the president said. "And we know that this kind of corruption is a daily fact of life for far too many." While Kenya had a "per capita economy larger than South Korea's when I was born," Obama added, that has changed for the worse.
The message was a more public version of the story that he shared privately with African leaders at the G8 summit in L'Aquila on Friday. In a meeting on Friday with the leaders of Egypt, Algeria, Senegal, Nigeria, Libya and Ethiopia, Obama spoke about his personal connections to both Africa and poverty, and challenged the leaders to set priorities for combating poverty and hunger. According to a top White House aide, "You could have heard a pin drop."
...The president said today that he had come to Ghana, his final stop on a six-day trip, after international summits in Italy and Russia, "for a simple reason: The 21st century will be shaped by what happens not just in Rome or Moscow or Washington, but by what happens in Accra as well." Aides said the goal of the trip was to send a message to Africans to follow Ghana's example of democracy and good governance, and to the larger world that Africa is not just a place of warfare, disease and famine. In their first-ever meeting this morning, President Obama praised Ghanaian President John Atta as "a democratic leader who did it the right way," praising the "institutions that are sustaining democracy and openness and transparency," and adding that, "we think that Ghana can be an extraordinary model for success throughout the continent."
The White House chose Ghana over other African nations, including Kenya, where Obama's father came from, to showcase a successful African democracy. Obama's mention of Kenya in his address today as being "badly outpaced" capped a week of pointed criticism at the country's leadership; criticism many Kenyans agree with. In local television analysis, Kenyan political analyst Kwamchetsi Makokha called the speech "a lecture" for African leaders. He said Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki should have been "squirming in his seat" listening to the speech because Obama "basically berated the Kenyan leadership...If you're a Kenyan and you listened to the part of the speech where he spoke about democracy, and then he also spoke about opportunity, and when spoke about conflicts and peaceful resolution of disputes, you would be cringing at every opportunity," said Makokha. "On each of those counts our administration is guilty."
I wonder what they said about W and that volleyball picture. I guess they didn't even care that she's a 16 or 17 year old girl and this stuff is embarrassing for her (I would imagine). 
