Bermuda is hosting three African tourism ministers and leading academics during the planning conference for the African Diaspora Heritage Trail.

The trail was the vision of former tourism minister, the late David Allen. He hoped that a trail could be established to link historical and cultural sites from the Atlantic slave trade, which ended nearly 200 years ago.

The trail will include locations in Africa, the Caribbean, South America, Central America and North America. Visitors on the trail would have the opportunity to be properly educated about each sites significance.

Bermuda established its own African Diaspora Trail in 2002. The trail includes historically important locations such as the Slave Graveyard at St. Peter?s Church, the Cobb?s Hill Methodist Church which was built by slaves in the moonlight and the Crow Lane location of martyr Sally Basset?s execution. The locations are marked by commemorative plaques.

Dr. Ewart Brown, Minister of Tourism, welcomed the invited guests to Bermuda at the Wyndham Resort on Thursday evening.

Moreover, Dr. Brown said Bermuda could have story tellers who would shepherd tourists from one point to another and tell the story behind the site.

?At the moment we leave visitors to figure it out for themselves,? Dr. Brown said about many areas of the Island.

He also felt it would ?open up conversation? between blacks and whites in Bermuda about previous injustices and the Island?s racist history, something that the Bermuda Independence Report said is greatly needed on the Island.

Among the attendees at the planning conference are the tourism ministers from Angola, Ghana and Zambia.

Ghana?s minister, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, said establishing the trail would be one step towards making the ?twenty-first century the African century?.

He also felt it would help the world combat racism and, ?overcome the ignorance that has been created by the colonial experience.?

Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey said Ghana has already established areas of interest for the trail and told that his country has the most relics of the displacement of slaves in Africa.

Eduardo Chingunji, Minister of Tourism from Angola, felt the conference was important because many government fail to see tourism as something serious and only market their country as a relaxing holiday destination.

He said one location that he would love to include on the trail was a building where slaves that were taken from Angola were housed until they boarded the ship that took them to the new world.

He told that Angolan traditions were still found in the Caribbean and South America, for example slaves taken from Angola introduced the martial art Capoeira to Brazil.

Zambia?s tourism minister, Patrick Kalifungwa, said that many Americans have become interested as of late in tracing their roots and learning where in Africa they came from.

He spoke of the new developments in DNA testing which allow people to discover what country in Africa their ancestors were from.

He said one important part of the trail would be improving the partnership between the government and tourism related businesses.

?The trail would also be important because it will bring African Americans together to discuss issues that effect all of us,? Mr. Kalifungwa said.

The conference will tackle the goals and logistics of establishing the trail.

The conference ends today with a final round of meetings and a speech from Danny Glover, an American movie star of The Color Purple and Lethal Weapon series fame, who is also the chairman of the Transafrica Forum and a UNICEF Ambassador.