The story of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade is not complete without Badagry. It was the last point of connection to Africa, for many slaves. Today, it is home to several memorabilia from that time.

Badagry is also home to “The Point of No Return”—a long stretch of white sand, dotted with hazelnut trees, grasses and sparse housing. Hands and feet chained, slaves walked along the beach, to waiting ships on the Atlantic Ocean, from where they made their journeys to different parts of the world.

Centuries after the slave trade, during the 2017 Badagry Diaspora Festival, the “Point of No Return” became the “Door of Return”—a symbolic ground to welcome Africans in the diaspora back home. They will now return to Motherland through the same door that led their forbears away.

Amidst the euphoria that greeted their return, there were several rites performed before they were fully inducted back into the country of their forefathers. They also took on new Yoruba names.

In the end, by water they left, by water they returned.

The title Homegoing was inspired by the novelist Yaa Gyasi, who has a novel with the same title.