1878 — The Azor Sails for Liberia

On April 21, 1878, the bark Azor sailed out of Charleston, South Carolina, carrying 206 African Americans who had pooled six thousand dollars to take themselves back to Africa. They traveled under the Black-owned Liberian Exodus Joint Stock Steamship Company, funding their own passage home in an act of collective resolve, thirteen years after emancipation, toward a land they had chosen for themselves.

The company lost 23 souls on the brutal 42-day crossing to Monrovia. But those who stayed built lasting lives: coffee farms, churches, and a future president's grandson among them. Their return became a foundation, planted at great cost.