October 1, Bissau - The Ministry of Justice confirmed today that the Republic of Guinea Bissau will conduct the civil marriage ceremony of Siphiwe Baleka and Sânebickté Juliana Yala Nhanca on October 10, 2025 at 1:00 p.m. at the Ministry of Justice. This ceremony takes place on the 172nd Anniversary of the Emancipation and Marriage of Jack and Cherry Blake on October 10, 1853. Jack Blake is the Great, Great, Great, Great Balanta Grandfather of Siphiwe Baleka and the first of that family to be free in America.
“Jack Blake was born into slavery in 1789. His father was taken from the Balanta village of Untche and enslaved in the Americas in 1760. Jack was the first to be born into slavery and the first to get emancipated and become free. The first thing he did with that freedom was to mary the love of his life, a woman named Cherry. It is amazing that one hudred and seventy-two years later, on the exact day, the Republic of Guinea Bissau will conduct the civil ceremony for my marriage to the woman I love,” said Mr. Baleka.
Baleka sees this as an important milestone for the Decade of Return initiative that he created and launched with the Ministry of Tourism back in 2021. The original goal was to help the Balanta people in the United States reconnect with their Balanta culture, history and language. That initiative has since expanded and more than fifty people of Guinean origin have return to visit their ancestral homeland and twenty of them have received their citizenship.
According to Mr. Baleka, this will be the first civil marriage on record between a Balanta Afrodescendente and a native Balanta of Guinea Bissau and thus marks an important milestone in Balanta and Guinea Bissau history. Said Baleka,
“We have triumphed over the crime of enslavement, ethnocide, and colonialism. African people everywhere are one people with a shared history. Our marriage on this day will serve as a symbol connecting the Balanta histories on both sides of the Atlantic and as a living testimony of Marcus Garvey’s ‘back to Africa’ vision."
It should be noted that at the start of the 21st century, Balanta emerged on the world scene. In 2000, Kumba Yalá was elected and inaugurated as President of the Republic of Guinea Bissau, becoming the most important and famous Balanta in the history of that country. Meanwhile, in 2003, by the will of God and the appointment by the Rastafari people in Shashemane, Ethiopia, Siphiwe Baleka, known as “Ras Nathaniel” at the time, became the representative of the 250 million Afrodescendents at the African Union when it approved the article 3(q) amendment inviting and encouraging the “full participation” of the African Diaspora in the building of the African Union. Since then Mr. Baleka has become their chief advocate in international forums for their Right to Return. The Yala-Baleka union is therefore a union of two prominent Balanta families.