MONROVIA, Liberia — 25 May 2026
The Africa-Barbados Heritage Initiative (TABHI) launched its new website, https://back2barbados.com/, on Africa Day 2026, creating a platform to preserve shared history and strengthen cultural and institutional ties between Barbados and Liberia.
Founded by Ambassador Lorenzo Llewellyn Witherspoon, a direct descendant of Barbadian John Prince Porte (1815-1890), TABHI grew out of his 2019 research into the Porte family’s Barbadian ancestry and the 1865 migration of 347 Barbadians to Liberia aboard the brig Cora. His published work, Portes Find a New Home in Liberia, renewed public awareness of the historic bond between the two countries and laid the groundwork for a broader initiative focused on heritage and diplomacy.
Momentum grew in 2021, when Ambassador Witherspoon met with Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley in Bridgetown to discuss ancestry, archives, and deeper engagement between Barbados and Liberia. This momentum carried into the 2024 Sankofa Back2Barbados Pilgrimage, which brought more than 500 descendants of Barbadian emigrants from around the world to Barbados for ancestral tracing, cultural exchange, and family reconnection. The pilgrimage symbolically reversed the 1865 emigration to Liberia.
Recent diplomatic milestones have further strengthened the relationship. In 2024, after the inauguration of Liberia’s President Joseph N. Boakai, Sr., Foreign Minister Sarah Beysolow Nyanti signed a Joint Communique at the High Commission of Barbados in Accra, paving the way for the establishment of diplomatic relations between Liberia and Barbados.
In 2025, the Ambassador of Barbados presented Letters of Credence to President Boakai in Monrovia. Days later, President Dame Sandra Mason visited Liberia to participate in the commemoration of the 160th anniversary of Crozierville, a community founded by Barbadian settlers.
In March 2026, Barbados and Liberia signed a visa waiver agreement and a framework for political consultations, opening new opportunities for travel, exchange, and practical cooperation.
“This website is a platform for remembrance, reconnection, and renewal,” said Ambassador Lorenzo Llewellyn Witherspoon. “It reflects a shared history and points to a shared future built on exchange, partnership, and opportunity.”
Professor Dr. Caree A. Banton, a TABHI Board Member and author of More Auspicious Shores: Barbadian Migration to Liberia, Blackness, and the Making of an African Republic, remarked, “In 1865, a courageous voyage linked Barbados to Liberia. Today, their descendants are bridging that same ocean through cooperation, commerce, and community. We stand on their shoulders to transform a shared history into a powerful future for transatlantic development.”
Ambassador David Comissiong, Barbados’ Ambassador to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), said, “on Sunday the 24th of May 2026, a Nigerian aircraft operated by Air Peace landed at Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados, thereby inaugurating a direct airline service between Lagos, Nigeria and Barbados. As the aircraft gracefully landed in Barbados with its load of pioneering passengers, construction workers were already hard at work at a 5 acre site in the Heart of Bridgetown, the capital city of Barbados, constructing the new buildings that will house the Caribbean headquarters and trade centre of the African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank). He went on to state that “without a doubt, it is fair to assert that a profound deepening and extension of the relationship between the Republic of Barbados and its “mother continent” of Africa is well and truly underway !
He added that “there could be no better time for Ambassador Lorenzo Witherspoon and his collaborators on the Board of the Africa Barbados Heritage Initiative (TABHI) to launch the organization’s website. The foundation for the wonderful developments we are now witnessing was laid some 161 years ago, when an intrepid group of 346 African Barbadians reversed the Middle Passage and made their way to the Republic of Liberia in search of greater freedom and opportunities. They reconnected the circle of our common African ancestry and heritage, and it is now up to our generation to realize the full promise of that historic 1865 repatriation initiative. I look forward with great anticipation to the contribution TABHI will make to this profoundly important project.”
Through the new site, TABHI will share historical resources, initiative updates, and opportunities for descendants, researchers, institutions, and supporters to engage with its work. The organization is also exploring long-term projects in heritage preservation, education, skills development, and cross-border collaboration.
About TABHI
TABHI works to preserve the history of Barbadian emigrants to Liberia, reconnect families across Barbados, Liberia, Africa, and the wider diaspora, and promote long-term cooperation rooted in shared heritage.
In preparation for the 160th anniversary celebrations in 2025, TABHI covered the cost of erecting headstones for the three Presidents of Liberia of Barbadian ancestry at the Crozierville Monument and made a substantial financial contribution to upgrade and refurbish Christ Episcopal Church. The church was built in 1865 under the leadership of Porte family patriarch John Prince Porte. His son, Conrad Coslet Porte, father of Albert Porte and Lillian Porte Best, served as rector there for more than forty years.
