From Brooklyn to Accra: African American couple join wave of Black migration to Africa

Leaving the United States to start over in a life abroad in Ghana can be a hard decision to make, but it is a choice more Black Americans have made in the last decade. A New York married couple, Dr. Torian Easterling and civil rights lawyer Diane O. Lucas, say they have decided to embark on a two-year journey with their family as “returnees” to Africa.

One might assume that Easterling, Lucas, and their family are uprooting and moving to Ghana because of the overarching political climate, as many Black expatriates have.

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“My connection to the continent really comes out of an ideology, political, social ideology, very akin to Pan-Africanism,” said Easterling, 44. “Even from a young age, there was always this curiosity and yearning to understand more about the continent, moving past any narratives or any fear.”

For years, Ghana’s former President Nana Akufo-Addo actively encouraged Black expats and descendants of enslaved Africans to move back “home.” 

He designated 2019 as “The Year of the Return,” marking 400 years since the first enslaved Africans arrived in colonial Virginia in 1619. Ghana’s tourism industry took off, with the government also launching the “Beyond the Return” campaign. However, prominent Black Americans have sought out the idea of Ghana as a homeland well before then, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Maya Angelou, both of whom ultimately moved there in the 1960s. 

As deeply active members in the health, legal, and political communities, Easterling and Lucas agreed that the unease many of African descent feel in the U.S. under the Trump administration is palpable, but they say they have been aligned on this dream individually and together as a couple for several years. They started dreaming of moving to Ghana as a family in 2019, but they were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We were very intentional about wanting to live abroad,” said Lucas, 45, who was the Head of Racial Justice Pro Bono at the law firm Davis Polk. “That would be the dream.”

Easterling is the former first deputy commissioner and chief equity officer at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. During his first year in medical school, he said, he traveled with other students to Ghana and returned several times since. He’s also done medical mission work in post-conflict countries, like Liberia and Sierra Leone, helping to rebuild their healthcare systems.

Filling a necessary gap

Tens of thousands of young, talented African youths are moving out to find opportunities, a phenomenon known as “brain drain.” According to the African Union Development Agency – New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD), there are about 70,000 skilled African professionals who leave the continent each year for the U.S., Australia, UK, and Canada. 

The emigration has hit the healthcare industry in particular very hard. The Year of Return and other initiatives aimed at the African diaspora have sought to rebuild these industries and bridge the workforce gap.

Easterling, who also served as an executive with One Brooklyn Health, was recently accepted into a fellowship at the Harvard Business School for the next year. After his fellowship wraps, he plans to apply for another year-long Fulbright scholarship to stay in Ghana.

On a recent sunny Saturday afternoon, the Easterling family, which includes their three young children, gathered in Saratoga Park in Brooklyn to say goodbye to America for the next two years. 

Emigration and immigration

Lucas’ parents are from Sierra Leone while she and her sisters were raised in the U.S. She said she remembers growing up that many of her family members were displaced 

because of the Civil War, which lasted from 1991 to about 2002. She had never visited Sierra Leone.

“I had this interesting vantage point because I was born and raised here. I am African, and also African American … culturally. I feel like all of it is in me, but because this is really the only reality I’ve ever had, being Black in America, that’s the only truth I’ve known,” said Lucas, who says her first trip to the continent was to Ghana in 2005.

On arriving, she said, “I just started crying. Because it was so loaded for me.” Lucas said, “I felt like this homecoming as a descendant of enslaved Africans. The history of Sierra Leone.”

As they prepare to enter Ghana’s immigration system, the two spoke about how heartbreaking anti-immigrant rhetoric and blatant racism have become in the U.S. as the federal government ramps up its often violent deportation agenda. The U.S. Supreme Court lifted lower-court orders that had blocked the administration from ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians and Syrians, clearing the way for the terminations to proceed in July 2026. Many are reporting that they’re forced to wear mandatory ankle monitors in between immigration check-ins.

“I mean, I am so deeply angry, disappointed, devastated by what this country’s doing. I just have images of our Haitian brothers and sisters, the shackles … the ankle monitors. Like modern-day shackles on them,” said Lucas.

The couple said they remain committed to justice and plan upon returning to keep working on creating a better America.

“As much as we are excited to leave, America is our home, she said, “and we are going to continue to try to make it a better place. And try to hold it to its ideal. We’re going to continue that fight abroad and also when we get back.”

Easterling said they understand the current climate.

“We both held positions within the state and the city, and so we’re certainly in a moment that we’re not totally surprised because the U.S. is based on the perils of capitalism,” he said. “A lot of the work that we have done has been to disrupt these types of systems.”

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