- Likem: Foreigners from North Africa and Europe started buying our people many centuries ago. The foreigners bought Black souls from Black traders representing the holy Songhai, Ashanti, and Benin Empires. That was a result of tribalism. After a war the winners sold the losers into servitude. This practice continued for centuries. It was accepted, it was a part of life, but things changed when foreigners bought our people, and after that they were gone as if they had never been. Daughters and sons not dead so they could be buried and eulogized. Much later we learned that our women were... raped and defiled. Young mothers drowned themselves and their babies. Brokenhearted men and women died from typhus, their wills and bodies shattered. Nearly two million souls perished on the Middle Passage from the motherland to hell. Those that survived could not remember their names... their gods, languages, and their people. And we did not think about them. They were souls lost on us. So we keep that door... to remind us of the sins against the children of Africa... to remind us... of our bargain... with the devil.
- Leon Simmons: Yeah, brother, I'm-a... I'm-a have to go back to where we came from and get my business in order. Make a way for some people to break away, you know?
- Dodzi: Will you be in danger?
- Leon Simmons: I mean, they ain't killed me yet.
- Dodzi: See, the slavers of old held on to their human cargoes because there was so much wealth. They slaughtered anyone who tried to stop them. They fought in wars to keep the gold in their pockets. How can one man stop such a thing?
- Leon Simmons: It's a wedding gift.
- Aunt Louie: Aw, you got us a wedding gift?
- Leon Simmons: Yeah, I figured better late than never. When a member of a tribe travels, they use this as they passport. The man who gave me this said it belonged to a chief, and that was his wife's face, so it just made me think of y'all.