Called back to Africa by DNA

"African Americans are the richest Africans in the world," said Archer, 43. "Africa can tap into us for our resources, and we can tap into them for our identities. "

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Archer and Gregory Simpkins, a vice president of the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation, which seeks to build bridges between the U.S. and Africa, are working to promote dual citizenship with Benin, Ghana, Tanzania and others. In a 63-page proposal to African leaders at a Tanzanian summit last year, Archer advocated granting dual citizenship to African descendants if ancestral linkages could be shown through DNA tests.

Ghana is the only African nation that clearly offers citizenship to African Americans, Archer said. Its "right to abode" law allows citizenship for those who live in the country for several years; Archer would like to see that requirement waived.

Liberia, which was founded by freed American slaves, used to offer citizenship to African Americans but adopted a new constitution in 1986 that is less clear on the question, he said.

In Sierra Leone, which made Washington a citizen, requests are decided on a case-by-case basis by a presidential commission; an ancestral linkage is not necessarily required.

Cyrille Segbe Oguin, Benin's ambassador to the United States, said African nations were pondering ways to accommodate the desire for dual citizenship. The West African nation took the first step toward reconciliation with African Americans a decade ago by apologizing for its part in the slave trade and hosting annual festivals to help nurture ties between the two sides.

"We want to repair the broken relations and see what we can do together," Oguin said.

So far, however, Washington is one of the few African Americans who have received African citizenship in recent years. Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma granted it to Washington last fall because of his DNA test, his philanthropy and his celebrity, said Bockari Kortu Stevens, the nation's ambassador to the United States.

Stevens said Sierra Leone, which is emerging from a decade of brutal civil war, needed someone famous like Washington to improve its image.

"We need a celebrity to come out and say, 'Look, the war is over, it's a peaceful country and there are lots of private sector investment opportunities,' " Stevens said.

The African diaspora has reached out to the continent since the early 19th century, as Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey advocated a "Back to Africa" movement and freed American slaves established a colony in Liberia.