Springfield pastor visits Ghana to trace origins of her ancestors

By Staasi Heropoulos | Special to The Republican • November 6, 2024
The Rev. Terrlyn Curry Avery sits in a boat next to the Botti Falls in Ghana

The Rev. Terrlyn Curry Avery sits in a boat next to the Botti Falls in Ghana. The pastor of Springfield's Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Presbyterian Church recently traveled to Ghana to trace the origins of her ancestors.

SPRINGFIELD — The Rev. Terrlyn Curry Avery stood in the darkness of a dungeon beneath a castle in Ghana, the emptiness revealing how her ancestors must have suffered in that place.


“Enslaved people would be kept in a dungeon where they had to stay in their own urine, feces, blood, vomit or whatever other sickness they had,” the Springfield-based pastor said in an interview. “They were given very little food. It was dark and they were treated severely. I imagine they were scared. Like animals, they were branded with hot irons to mark them as property.”


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