From the outside, the Cape Coast Castle is a beautifully preserved colonial landmark on the Atlantic Ocean shores of Ghana. Inside, its dungeons held African people for sale. This is the destination for 22 Episcopalians from the Diocese of Atlanta in the fifth pilgrimage focused on racial reconciliation and partnership with Anglican churches in the Cape Coast Diocese. They leave April 30 and return May 8.

“Seeing the Anglican chapel directly above the deep dark dungeons was pivotal,” said The Rev. Jeff Jackson, rector of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Carrollton, of the 2023 pilgrimage. He will co-lead this one.

“It’s heart-wrenching and strangely liberating to stand in places where people who are like me, and look like me, did these unholy things,” Jackson said. “All of us are sinners and all are forgiven, and learning this history grounded me in important ways and gave me new tools for how to dismantle racism. “

The group of 22 includes 17 travelers accompanied by clergy leaders and a diocesan communications team. Two participants, Jake Alston and Sam Lamback, are students at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School. The co-leader is The Rev. Canon C. John Thompson-Quartey, who is from Ghana and has shepherded the previous pilgrimages.

Pilgrimage What and Why

In the 18th century, Cape Coast was one of the principal shipping points for slaves across the Atlantic, and up to 1,500 Africans were held in the castle dungeons waiting for the next slaving ship. Above them, in comfortable housing and offices, the British ran a massive slavery operation. Though the British abolished the slave trade in 1807, it did not come to an end in Ghana until about 1870.

Castles, markets, and other vestiges of the slave trade are “wisdom sites” to the Atlanta travelers. They read this excerpt from “The Art of Pilgrimage”:

“Imagine what is behind the presence at these wisdom sites and places of pilgrimage. Imagine that its presence demands yours. The call that brought you here was a call to pay closer attention to the sacred source of your life. After all your preparation, the arduous journeying, the force that called you here is asking for something vital only you can give. What is it? What can you give back?”

Some participants, like Mallard Benton of St. David’s and Ken and Diane Barton of Holy Cross, have traced their ancestors to West Africa. Several pilgrims have ties to Jamaica, Guyana, and other countries where humans from Africa were shipped.

Other pilgrimage members have slaveholders and Confederate troops in their family trees. All are anticipating a new understanding of themselves from this trip.

Spreading and Deepening Connections

For eight years, the Anglican Diocese of Cape Coast in Ghana and the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta have been companions in ministry.

The Diocese of Atlanta entered this relationship as part of a commitment to love like Jesus and seek healing from the harms of slavery and racism. The Diocese of Cape Coast entered as part of a commitment to God’s mission and a strategic vision to grow the Diocese for mission and ministry.

Together, the two bodies share in God’s work of reconciliation through a relationship focused on prayer, spiritual growth, racial healing, education, leadership formation, financial sustainability, and traveling to see one another.

Out of the 2023 pilgrimage came a sustainability project to educate young women and help them become financially independent: the Dignity Sewing Centre. Beth-Sarah Wright, who is married to Bishop Robert C. Wright, has been very involved in the Dignity partnership and will help officially open the Centre on the 2025 pilgrimage.

The pilgrimage will also visit an earlier sustainability project: a pig farm where the profits are used to fund pensions for the diocese’s aging clergy.

Spiritual Supply Chain

The travelers represent a growing human legacy between the dioceses, what Bishop Wright has called a “spiritual supply chain” that helps heal the wounds of the inhuman supply chain of slavery.

Four parishes in the Atlanta Diocese formally partner with Cape Coast parishes: Christ Church, Kennesaw; St. Margaret’s, Carrollton; St. Matthias, Toccoa; and St. Thomas, Columbus.

When communion is served at St. Margaret’s, the wafers come from Cape Coast—a symbol of the connection established in 2023 with St. Teresa of Avila Cape Coast. (Jackson and his counterpart, The Rev. Domenick Eshun, recorded this conversation in 2021.)

The Rev. Fr. Lenworth Haughton, his wife Verna Barrett-Haughton and Dorothy Eddings will represent Christ Church Kennesaw. They were influenced by their rector, The Rev. Ben Day, who was considering leaving the priesthood until the 2023 pilgrimage re-energized his spirit. A Cape Coast priest spent part of his sabbatical at their church, too.

From St. Thomas, The Rev. Grace Burton-Edwards went on the 2019 pilgrimage; another member, Malinda Shamburger, executive director of Chattahoochee Valley Episcopal Ministry, took part in 2023. In 2025, the church is sending vestry member Mollie Smith.

“Mollie is a lifelong Episcopalian who appreciates the breadth of the Anglican Communion and the gift of sharing in this global body of Christ,” Burton-Edwards said. “I am excited for her to meet our partners, share in worship and dialogue with them, see their ministries in action and then come back to share the experience. We hope her presence with this pilgrimage group will help facilitate a deeper relationship between St. Thomas and our friends in the Diocese of Cape Coast.”

In a recent meeting with the travelers, Bishop Wright noted that among the 1.6 million members of The Episcopal Church in the US, the average member is female, white and in her 60s; in the Anglican Communion (which The Episcopal Church is part of), the typical member is female, African and in her 40s. There are 98 million Anglicans worldwide.

“So, we’re going home to our Anglican roots,” he told the Ghana travelers. “I hope you won’t think that it’s just all tragic. You’re gonna learn something about humanity. … What we do hope that you will do is that when you come back, that you tell the story [and] perhaps rewrite some of the narratives that we’ve been fed about things.”

The pilgrimage includes representatives of the following parishes:

• Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta
• Christ Church, Kennesaw
• Holy Cross, Decatur
• Holy Innocents’ School, Atlanta
• St. Bartholomew’s, Atlanta
• St. David’s, Roswell
• St. Gregory’s, Athens
• St. Luke’s, Atlanta
• St. Margaret’s, Carrollton
• St. Matthias, Toccoa
• St. Michael & All Angels, Stone Mountain
• St. Thomas, Columbus
• St. Timothy’s, Decatur