Powerful symbol, weak in facts

GOREE ISLAND, Senegal - Standing in a narrow doorway opening onto the Atlantic Ocean, tour guide Aladji Ndiaye asked a visitor to this Senegalese island's Slave House to imagine the millions of shackled Africans who stepped through it, forced onto overcrowded ships that would carry them to lives of slavery in the Americas.

By John Murphy

June 30, 2004