Original subtitles

I'm Gabrielle Union.

I'm turning 50,

and man, I never thought I'd get here so quickly.

I was just a Midwestern girl

from the north side of Omaha.

And given my humble beginnings,

I could have never imagined what my life has become.

Having an impactful career

after almost 30 years in this business.

I have an amazing marriage with my husband, Dwyane Wade,

and I am so blessed that our daughter,

Kaavia James, came into this world

despite some difficult circumstances.

This momentous milestone

has forced me to finally face an emptiness in my life

that I've felt for a long time now.

It's something that all the fame and success couldn't erase.

I still have some wounds that need to be healed.

So, I have decided that for my fifth decade of life,

I'm going to focus on decentering my traumas,

finding my peace, and having loads of fun along the way.

And to do that,

I'm going to take a journey with my family and closest friends

to Ghana, Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania.

On this trip, I wanna gain wisdom

and become my most authentic self.

This is My Journey to 50 .

We're gonna welcome our birthday girl, Gabrielle!

We made it to Zanzibar.

I am here.

And it's perfect.

We do big parties.

We take, you know, fabulous trips around the world.

But for my 50th birthday,

what I needed was to be surrounded by

my friends and family.

Oh, that's new!

And I knew it was a tall order.

People have lives and kids and careers

and all the things.

But it had to be in Africa.

Kaavia's saved some stuff for Africa, y'all!

She's breaking some stuff out!

So, with my family, we have my mom, Theresa.

Never been to Africa.

My Aunt Katie.

After you dance with Kaavia, you gotta tag the next person.

My daughter, Kaavia James.

It wasn't me! Tag, you it!

My niece, Chelsea.

My little sister, Tracy.

Guys, if you guys wanna grab food, it's open.

I'm gonna get me some beef and rice.

Mmmm!

Adair Curtis is one of my most trusted friends.

If one person is my crypt keeper,

that is Adair Curtis.

If Gab thinks something is a great idea,

99.999% of the time...

- It is! - It's a great idea!

I'm talkin' about places to go.

It could be a great terrible idea.

Essence Atkins, fellow actress.

Right. Exactly.

We got cast as sisters in this pilot for NBC.

And we have been like sisters ever since.

We have done the exact same thing.

She's like my emotional center.

Angie Martinez.

You gotta have a real one in your crew

that is about that action.

I just wanted to include as many people as possible

on this Africa trip.

All right, baby. So, why Zanzibar?

So many of the places

that, like, I even know to wanna go

are from social media.

But especially watching black people travel,

and black people that I know,

and I know how, like, stressed they are.

I know, like, what they're going through.

And then you see them in some location,

and they look like themselves again...

A lot of the trauma that I have accumulated

over my life...

I had gotten divorced, I was raped at gunpoint,

and I was struggling with my fertility.

And I had been disassociating.

That was all weighing heavily on my spirit.

I knew I couldn't sustain living in that way.

So I've always looked to the continent of Africa

as the source of all things, including joy.

Including light, including levity.

And I thought that the closer I got to self...

I knew my joy and my peace couldn't be far behind.

This birthday has started off just like everybody knows you

knows how you want your birthday to start off.

On the flow, literally.

Welcome to Africa.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You guys traveled very far.

It means a lot to Gab that you guys are here.

We're lookin' forward to havin'

just a life-changing experience together.

It's amazing to have our extended family with us, so...

Kaavi, you wanna say anything?

Okay.

Thank you guys for coming.

Let's have a good night.

We planned this trip

so each place has its own story.

Our first leg of the trip started in Ghana.

Let's see how it began.

Out of customs, all of a sudden you hear joyous shouts.

You hear drums, you hear cheering.

And I'm like, "Ooh, who's here?"

I'm lookin' around to see who's causin' all this excitement.

And then I'm like, "Oh, it's for my husband."

I've seen him get this kind of welcome all over the world.

- And then you hear Kaav's name. - Kaavia!

And then you hear Kaav's name,

and Kaav's name, and Kaav's name.

And you realize, "Oh my gosh."

Like, there's been a lot of people praying for our family,

and specifically for Kaav.

And, and loving her online even when she was just a thought.

Ghana is that first bridge that we cross

as African Americans into West Africa.

As the beginning of

our spiritual, emotional, physical, mental awakening.

Day one, Ghana.

Let's go, baby.

Now we're headed to the village of Nyamebekyere.

As we start gettin' closer and closer,

it started feeling a little bit more familiar.

It's funny, because I'm from the north side of Omaha.

So, even though we're in Ghana,

it still felt kind of exciting, but, like, also like,

"Wait, we traveled to come home, and are we home?"

We were invited to participate in an enstoolment ceremony

by my good friend Taiye Samuel,

where our good friend Diallo is being made a chief.

Akan chiefs have elaborately carved stools

that are incorporated into ceremonies

as symbols of their authority.

To be a part of an enstoolment in any way is a big deal.

Taiye is like the welcoming committee.

Hi, Gab-Gab!

I've known Taiye, AKA the Wild Afrikan,

for almost 20 years.

He's like a brother to me.

Hi, hi, and all the things.

- Oh my God. - Brother.

We met in Atlanta in 2004.

Taiye, Chaka Zulu, and Ludacris, that was my crew.

Kaavia, hi!

Give me a little something, yeah.

- You ready? - Yeah.

Yes, we are.

It always feels like Taiye

knows everyone everywhere.

You've told me about this for so many years,

never could make it happen.

And he's been tryin' to get me to West Africa

for so long.

We everywhere, baby! We everywhere!

When I was struggling with my fertility,

Taiye was the friend that prayed me through it.

It's beautiful that our relationship

has gone from friends that party together

to friends that pray together.

Welcome home, Wade family. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Say hi, Kaavi.

Because I was wanting to truly understand

our collective history for my 50th birthday,

Taiye wanted us to witness the enstoolment

of a person responsible for the repatriation of so many.

Diallo coordinated the Year of Return,

where over one million black Americans

came back to Ghana.

And he's improving infrastructure

by building a community center for the village.

Thanks for comin'.

- Thanks for havin' us. - Thank you for havin' us.

How is Kaavia? Hi!

It's beautiful.

High five. There we go.

All the feels.

Very nice, very nice! Very nice!

Congratulations, bro. This is big.

They're gonna get some original songs.

They say the highest thing you can do in West African culture,

is pour libations, speak,

and paying homage to your ancestors.

That kinda sounds like our friendship in a nutshell.

I now call on the Nkosuohene of Nyamebekyere, Nana Diallo.

If you can't tell by now, I have an American accent.

Shouts out for Trenton. Is that Trenton in the house?

D.C. in the house.

All right, and now Nyamebekyere is my home.

Pretty soon, there's gonna be some real potato salad in Ghana.

We love kontomire,

but we also love collard greens and kale mix.

Right, 'cause we're mixin' our cultures.

And it's important for African Americans to know

that if you don't know, you do have a culture.

So, when you travel to other places

and you assimilate and you mix,

you make sure you bring some of your culture.

So, for our special guests,

my brother Taiye has brought some friends.

Miss Gabrielle Union Wade, and Mr. Dwyane Wade.

So, for our naming ceremony today,

we have chosen and we want to give some Akan names

to some of our guests.

Here, hold Daddy's hand.

In traditional communities and societies,

you don't name adults, it happens at birth.

But in our process of reclaiming who we are,

reconnecting to our identity,

we do everything that we can do.

We know that when people see

how you have embraced this experience,

it will tear down a lot of walls.

Both of you are Sunday borns.

Where's all of my Sunday borns?

- Hold it down, hold it down. - Just us?

Oh, we gon' clap it up. Clap it up.

So, as my first official act,

Gabrielle, I'll start with you.

Akosua Safoa.

Akosua Safoa.

So, Gabrielle, we'd like to adorn you with

some traditional fabrics, as well.

So, Safoa is connected to the root word saafee,

which is "key".

It's the person that opens up things for everybody else.

The second he said that, I just...

became so emotional.

Because in my family,

I have had to be a literal key

to unlock education, housing, protection, justice...

To unlock the world.

Open doors, darlin'. Open doors.

- I have the key. - Open doors, yes.

Here is our queen.

Mr. Wade, although I'm a Detroit Pistons fan for life,

we love you.

Sorry.

So, also a Sunday born, which is Kwesi Asafo.

And the Asafo are the guardians of the town.

They are the ones who stand up to protect their family.

So, we feel like that is appropriate for you,

and we hope you embrace that name.

It look good on me?

Swag. That's my color?

- Color. - That's my color.

And then we have the young one.

She's ready. She knows what to do.

There had been talk of, like,

perhaps Kaav won't be comfortable

with strangers touching her.

You got this, baby!

And Kaav was like, "I'm not with any strangers.

I, I have yet to see a stranger. I'm with my people."

A Wednesday born.

And for Wednesdays, we say Akua.

Can you say Akua?

Akua.

Yes.

To bring Kaavia and Dwyane here,

and to be given names alongside one another,

feels like a new chapter for all of us.

She's embracin' it. Look, y'all think y'all leavin'.

Y'all ain't leavin' no time soon.

She got a whole different idea.

To receive my Ghanaian name

as I'm turning 50

is a key to unlocking something greater.

And my dream for Kaavia James is coming true.

At her young age, she won't have the same disconnect and longing

that I felt growing up.

They always say, "And a child shall lead you."

And a child led us.

We've got new names,

we have been adopted into this community.

And now we're all going to see

this library that Diallo is building.

It was like a parade,

a very joyous celebration that the community took part in.

It's nice! I was going to walk with music!

But right here, when I came here,

like, when you see all the youth with me.

Yeah.

It's because I rock with them.

Okay, yeah, it ain't just like

you like, "Yo, bro. Come with me. You out here--"

Nah, nah, I'm with 'em, I'm with 'em, I'm with 'em.

So, is this the library?

Well, it's the whole community center.

Oh, it's the whole community center.

People here, they don't have the same experiences

that we have.

You know what I'm sayin'? So...

If we bring our full experience,

like Taiye, like myself, we can't help it.

It's just who we are, kinda how we are, so...

Even for me, like, this is cool,

but I just had my nephews bring me some New Balance,

some Nike ACG boots.

I like how you said, like, it's the, the mergence of

cultures, like...

- And it's not a separation. - Right.

I love how you said that, yeah.

And we gotta teach them about us.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

And I've been to Africa many times, all around.

This is the first time anyone has said that.

Like, "We need you to bring your African Americanness here

as an exchange."

You know what I mean?

Like, we are here offering something

as well as receiving something.

But no one has ever presented it like that.

You know, when we come here, we just take everything we see.

And we need to start replacin' what we had

because we not sure what we have is grounded.

Not sure that it's good enough.

As opposed to bein' like,

"It doesn't have to be a or, it could be a and."

Should we see what books they have?

Ooh, dinosaurs!

This library Diallo built will give children access

to inspiring works by authors that look like them,

while also teaching them about the struggle and triumphs

of the African Diaspora.

Bookstores, books, library, that's my jam.

Immediately I'm thinkin', "Okay, I'm gonna call Harper's,

I'm gonna make sure they donate books.

I gotta, you know, I gotta figure out how to activate

Wade's World Foundation, so we can help."

So, I'm already thinking of how we can be better of service.

That one's called Life Doesn't Frighten Me

by Maya Angelou.

And the work that Diallo has been doing,

and all of the ways that this library...

Yes, it will be a library.

But it will be so many things in this community.

♪ So, lift every voice ♪

Diallo has even brought a go-go band,

which is so D.C.,

but completely inspired by African rhythms.

♪ 'Til earth and heaven ♪

I can't think of a better way

to kick off my 50th.

♪ Love, let's march on ♪

♪ Lift every voice ♪

♪ Sing 'til earth and heaven ♪

♪ Yeah, we will march on ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

Diallo took us to the Assin Manso River.

The site of the last bath our ancestors were given

before they were shined up and sold.

At this site, they realized after

marching a lot of them to their deaths,

that they had to have them bathe.

Fatten them up, give them a couple meals,

you know, lather them in shea butter at whatnot

to create the appearance of good health.

To be sold into slavery for the top dollar,

all along the way, trying to break their spirit.

And that was just the beginning of the unspeakable horrors.

It's really important for people of African descent,

when they visit, to come.

You know, your ancestral memory and all of that

is on you and with you,

so allow yourself to take it all in.

The one thing I'll tell you is it's a journey.

One of the worst things you can do is

try to process everything immediately.

Just let it sit with you and come out naturally.

Okay.

- Kwame? - Yes, sir.

Kwame's gonna give us the rundown.

- We leave it to you. - All right, sir.

Thank you very much.

Can I have a water? Water, water!

Oh God, this isn't how it ends, please, Jesus.

As our guide Kwame was talking,

my mother suddenly collapsed.

And all I could think of was, "Am I gonna lose her?"

Stay back, stay back.

I can't believe this is happening.

After my mom collapsed,

I've just been waiting to hear if she's okay.

Every second feels like forever,

because I'm just imagining the worst.

And I'm...

You know...

Calling upon the ancestors...

for the million things that were running through my mind

at that moment.

And I just hear what sounds like a chair

like, kinda drug across some rocks.

And I'm like...

And there was my mom.

Thank God she's fine. She'll be fine.

Yeah, she was gone.

We haven't even made it inside the door yet.

She probably needs this more than anybody.

What's the first thing she said?

"I wanna do it, I wanna keep goin'."

And first thing she said, "I don't wanna go back."

Somethin' in her tellin' her, "I need this."

In knowing my mom has gone through

a lot of trauma herself,

and grappling with that,

I hope this trip can mean peace

and understanding and joy for her.

When he started talking,

I started to feel angry.

And I wasn't controlling it.

I had a feeling that I am so helpless,

and then I felt myself drop.

Then I said, "Oh God, I would've been the weak link."

Because someone would've moved their selves to come get me

if I was back there.

In addition to the horrific physical torture,

it's the unraveling of one's mental state

that kills me.

To be so torn from your own mind,

so tragically marched away from anything familiar...

I can't stop thinking of

the mania, the confusion, and cruelty

of literally being stripped of one's mind

and forced to walk the dead-end path

away from your sanity.

Away from your identity.

In West African cultures,

Oshun is the goddess of love,

beauty, water, fertility, and femininity.

Hell, I may have been praying to her the whole time.

I can immediately feel our ancestors.

Their rage, the physical pain, the mental pain,

the confusion, the fierce fight for survival.

And to figure out a way out.

I wanted to feel the journey.

Can you help me down?

Yeah, we can help you down.

Okay.

Because there's my imagination, and this was way worse.

And it affected me like it was way worse.

Oh God.

- Yeah, yeah. - Now just relax.

I was, in my mind, going, "This is history.

This is history."

Not happening today, this is history.

And I thought, "The ancestors are saying

'You've got the right idea.

Now, take it home and figure it out.'"

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

It made me understand, the people who did make it,

some of the strengths.

Okay, 'cause the water reminds me of our family.

They came up the Missouri River to work in the packing houses.

That's why I wanted to be in the water.

River is just another stream, for me, in my consciousness.

Just thinkin' man.

Bring 'em here, clean 'em up.

Just to go sell 'em.

Then they get branded.

I could do nothin' but think about the way God built me.

And how my physique fits.

Well, you know, it's like you go to the NBA,

and your physique, it matters.

My arms bein' long, my, the build of my body,

my athleticism.

That's what got me drafted.

Same process that changed my family's life and fortune,

the same process that had us enslaved.

It's the same thing.

Clean up and let them draft me.

It's built off the same principle.

I was saying to our ancestors that,

"You did nothing wrong."

Nothing that happened to us was our fault.

And that is a sentiment that we carry as a people.

We don't need to apologize for situations

that are not of our making, not of our doing,

and we certainly are not benefitting from.

But...

I had to then remind myself of the same thing.

I didn't ask for shit.

None of this shit that's happened to me in this life,

I've never asked for any of that negative shit.

But I took it on as my own, like I deserved it.

Like that was what I was worthy of.

And I'm having to figure out how to, to release it...

without blaming myself in any way.

You know, so it was easy to tell a spirit to...

release that need.

'Cause you did nothing wrong.

It's harder to live it and walk it.

We're kind of off on this rock,

and saying our prayers for our peace.

Taiye joins us.

All I know is that my whole body felt

like something was leaving me.

And I realized that whatever is happening is powerful.

Having a prayer sent up to Oshun...

I mean, if I was a film director,

I'd be like,

"And as soon as the prayer to Oshun was finished,

cue the rain!"

Out of a clear blue sky...

a downpour.

It was confirmation to me Oshun is a very powerful god.

When the rains came down, I was like, "I hear you.

Okay, no more hedging my bets.

No more half-assing it, even in prayer."

And I just got the biggest...

smile...

and the most peace I've ever had in my life.

Dwyane's experience in the river, what I saw,

was a man taking in the enormity of

our collective history as African peoples.

And how closely it related to his experience.

This man is very proud of who he is

and where he came from,

and he has changed

in the most beautiful way.

When we rise from the Bath of Return,

we are adorned with spiritual leaves.

And I'm overwhelmed with the sense that I'm back home,

having completed this journey.

Just before we leave,

we are invited to write a personal message

on the memorial wall.

I will always feel a lasting physical connection

to this place and time,

no matter where my future takes me.

So, as I celebrate my 50th,

I feel committed to a more meaningful

and deeper experience in my life.

But you know, today I think we found our people.

We did. I think we found ourselves.

After taking their last bath

in the Assin Manso River,

the enslaved were taken to Cape Coast Castle,

before being shipped off to the New World.

Dwyane and I wanted to see this place for ourselves

in our journey to come to terms with our inherited past.

This is the last part of our journey for this time.

This is one of our community elders,

who's gonna take us through this journey

here at Cape Coast Dungeon.

- Rabbi. - Akwaaba . You're welcome.

It is a pleasure to take you on this journey.

I understand that your journey today

was to Assin Manso.

Having gone through that process chronologically,

and coming down here this evening

has set the pace for you spiritually

to go through this pilgrimage, this experience.

And we invite the ancestors to take us on this journey.

We'll begin.

Once upon a time,

castles invoked that royalty may have been present here.

Kings or queens or princes and princesses.

But this was not such.

This fort was built

when the slave trade was at its height.

And over 350 million Africans

live outside of the African continent.

And a majority of them are outside

because of what happened in these institutes.

This was the largest exit point of most of our ancestors.

Millions of them came out of the corridor

of what we used to know as the Gold Coast,

and now Ghana.

And that's why millions of us are makin' our return

back through the same gate, by comin' back to Ghana.

Our experience today will take place and begin

with the condemned cell,

the sea, the cannonball, the female dungeons.

And then after, we'll go through the Door of No Return.

And we'll defy all of the odds and come back through that door.

I say defy all the odds,

because we cannot count the number of conspiracies

and the amount of investment and the billions of dollars

that was put into separating Africa out of our mind.

We're comin' away from here with a sense of pride.

And we wear that.

We don't apologize for any emotions.

Because it is what made us who we are.

And it's why we survived,

it's why we still rise, and it's why we still go on.

Ashe.

Here we have our female dungeon.

We have to step in here and pay tribute to

our mothers and our daughters and our aunties.

In honor of them, all of them.

It is still the endurance and the strength

of the black women that holds us together today.

Your right hand on the wall, we pay tribute to our women.

Our women are resilience, our women of endurance.

Our women...

who said, "I will live and not die...

And I choose to build and renew our nation."

Hearing how women were held in this dungeon,

thinking about how women were separated from their children,

the constant threat of rape, starvation, disease...

How could this collective traua turn into something that

could free people today?

This is sacred ground.

This is the blood, sweat, and tears of our ancestors.

The suffering of our ancestors, their narrative.

And that's the story we take away from here.

Here's where they sort to separate us forever

from the African continent.

When our ancestors started bein' taken out of here,

there was no United States of America.

There was no Canada.

There was none of the places that we call today,

the places that we call them.

They simply called it "The New World".

And we were been taken to a new world,

a world that hadn't been created yet.

Now, everybody wants to travel there!

But we went there to actually build new worlds!

When we say that we want to build a New Africa,

that we want to build a New Africa

out of our own image, our own likeness as

African people, nothing is impossible.

But look at the worlds,

the worlds that we built out there,

and there's nothing outside of our hands.

They wanna make it look like we're just brute... brawns.

That we just carried burdens.

We just dug ditches.

But it was our intelligence!

It was our spirit!

What does it take to give a spirit to a land?

Who could put the value on putting a spirit to the land?

Who could put the value of giving the land a soul?

The way that we have done?

When people come to any part of that world,

they come to see the African spirit

that we brought there from here.

We didn't create it out of a vacuum.

We took it from somewhere and we brought it to somewhere.

And that's why I say even the African gods travel with us.

So, I understand you have a journey.

- It's my pleasure. - Thank you.

So, may you have a safe journey.

Thank you.

Many blessings...

and welcome home.

As we were leaving the castle,

a young kid with a basketball runs up to Dwyane.

Let him go, let him go. Please let him go.

Look at him. Look up.

You can let him go.

Come here, let's talk for a minute.

Let's talk about this ball right here.

He's okay.

It's okay.

How much do you practice with this ball?

How much do you practice?

You practice all the time?

Every day and night?

Yeah.

Why, why you wanna play in the NBA?

He gave you that, that talent, that ability?

You take care of... You build your own family.

So, you play to respect her and honor her.

Through, through what you do in life.

Through not givin' up.

Know what I mean?

You gotta play, you gotta pay respect and honor to

the people you love, your mom and dad,

not givin' up.

You know? And you build your own family.

Give me a hug, bro.

Give me a hug.

I had a dream just like you, man.

I wanted to do it, as well, for my family.

And you gotta do it for you.

You gotta be for you.

It was so moving

seeing Dwyane embrace this young kid

who, in many ways, reminded him of himself.

Okay, sir.

God bless your talent.

All right?

Your mom and dad was the best for you, just to get you here.

You got a purpose. Find your purpose.

You have purpose.

You wouldn't be here if you didn't have purpose.

Strengthen your mind.

Strengthen your whole body.

Strengthen that muscle, and you can accomplish anything.

It's moments like these that I am so grateful

that I'm married to someone whose soul is so beautiful.

Wade, Wade, Wade, Wade!

Thank you. Love.

Wade, Wade, Wade, Wade! Wade, Wade!

Know what I said? Know what I said?

Wade, Wade, Wade! Wade, Wade, Wade!

Wade, Wade, Wade!

Wade, Wade, Wade, Wade! Wade, Wade!

We're only on the first leg of our trip,

and so much has been poured into us

that we'll be able to pour into others.

Wade, Wade, Wade, Wade!

Wade, Wade, Wade, Wade!

♪ Listen to me closer ♪

♪ You can be my latest ♪

♪ Hearing what I say, so ♪

♪ You'll just be my latest ♪

This is the moment when they keep saying

"What does 50 feel like?"

50 feels like gratitude, and I am so grateful.

- Right here! - Oh no!

Take this party to another level now.

For your birthday, as a surprise,

everybody make some noise for the legend...

Look, Daddy.