Across social media and dinner-table conversations, a striking question circulates: Should African Americans consider “self-deportation” to places like Ghana, Portugal, Panama, or Mexico? It is not the first time this question has been raised in Black history. In the 19th century, the American Colonization Society proposed to solve the “Negro problem” by sending free Black people to Liberia. The overwhelming majority of African Americans resisted. The contrast between then and now tells us much about belonging, agency, and America’s unfulfilled promises.
In the 1800s, colonization was less an invitation than an expulsion. White elites wanted to remove free Black people to protect slavery and sidestep equality. Leaders like Frederick Douglass and David Walker denounced the scheme. Their message was simple: America is our home. We built it. We bled for it. We will not abandon it. To leave, they argued, was to surrender the fight for justice.
Today, the tone is different. African Americans are not being pushed out by a society offering to fund their departure. Instead, they are weighing their own options. The motivations are sobering: police violence, resurgent white nationalism, voter suppression, attacks on diversity programs. For some, Ghana’s “Year of Return” or Portugal’s warm welcome offers dignity, safety, and possibility. For others, Mexico or Panama offers affordability and a slower pace of life. Unlike the 19th century, this is not coerced exile but voluntary movement — an act of agency.
Yet the parallels remain. Then, as now, the impulse reflects deep disillusionment with America’s refusal to honor its democratic promises. The difference is that African Americans today possess the rights and passports their ancestors fought for. To leave is to relinquish, at least partly, the claim that Black people belong fully in the American story. Some prominent African Americans fall in this category: Paul Roberson, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, and many others.
The lesson of history is cautionary. When African Americans rejected colonization, they insisted that America was theirs, and they forced the nation to confront its hypocrisy. The risk of “self-deportation” today is that it concedes the field — allowing America to regress without the full presence of its most consistent democrats. At the same time, global mobility makes new forms of belonging possible. The choice is no longer between exile and home, but between staking a claim in America or creating a wider sense of home across the diaspora.
The question remains: do African Americans strengthen democracy by staying and fighting, or by leaving and flourishing elsewhere? History suggests the struggle here still matters. But history also reminds us why so many are tired of waiting.