Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye • Senior Advisor to ADACI Senegal – was the Chief Curator of the House of Slaves (Maison des Esclaves) and its Door of No Return on Goree Island, Senegal. The House of Slaves is a museum and memorial dedicated to the memorialization of the final exit point of many enslaved Afri-cans from the Continent during the Atlantic Slave Trade. Largely through the work of Ndiaye, the House of Slaves was reconstructed and opened as a museum in 1962 where he was appointed curator. The Maison des Esclaves is a central part of the Goree Island UNESCO World Heritage site, named in 1978, and a major attraction for tourist, especially those descended from enslaved Africans – in particular, African Americans – who have made the Museum a focal point of pilgrimages seeking to reconnect with their African heritage. Ndiaye was born October 15, 1922 in Rufisque, Senegal into a family of Gorean origin, and completed his primary education on Goree. He continued his education at the Professional School Pinet-Laprade Dakar, and later worked as a composer-typographer until he was conscripted into the French Army in 1943, where he participated in the liberation of France with the French First Army and was awarded the Distinguished War Cross, Officer of the National Order of the Lion, and Knight of the National Order of Merit of Senegal for a distinguished military career. Mr. Ndiaye, who transitioned to the Ancestors in 2009, remains one of the most renowned Senegalese figures in the world due to his impassioned advocacy of the historical significance of Goree Island and its impact on the commodification of captured African people.
Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye