Community in white garments arms raised in golden light MAAFA ceremony

A Spiritual Journey of Identity, Ancestry, and Purpose for African Americans

Embark. Remember. Become.

Bay Bridge at sunset San Francisco
I
Awakening
Bay Area, California
2 Days
Mothers of Gynecology sculpture Montgomery
II
Remembering
Montgomery, Alabama
4 Days
African Renaissance Monument Dakar with crowd on steps
III
Becoming
Senegal, West Africa
9 Days
Community gathering in ceremony
IV
Being
Yearlong Integration
370 Days
Woman at the water's edge at dawn

At the threshold —
where history meets calling.

The Invitation

Rerooting Identity.
Rekindling Faith.

For African Americans who feel the pull toward something deeper — a reconnection to who they are, where they come from, and what they are here to do.

"What have I carried?
What am I now free to build?" — The Ark Experience
Why This. Why Now.

A Wound That
Demands a Response

The United Nations has recognized the transatlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity — a rupture that severed African peoples from language, ancestry, and a continuous sense of self. No other group of Americans carries this particular wound.

400+
Years since the first Africans were enslaved in colonial America
12.5M
Africans forcibly transported across the Atlantic
370
Days — the length of Noah's journey on the Ark, and the length of this transformational Experience
Who This Journey Is For

Called, Curious,
and Ready to Cross

You feel a deeper stirring

You are drawn toward an ever-deepening intimacy with God — or toward discovering what that relationship might mean for you.

You are willing to be challenged

This journey moves through lament and honest reckoning before it arrives at joy. You must be willing to be changed by what you encounter.

You can hold space for others

The Ark Experience is communal. Participants commit to a generous, non-judgmental container — honoring each person's process.

You are African American

Designed specifically for African Americans — descendants of Africans brought to the United States through the transatlantic slave trade — navigating that inheritance: its ruptures, its resilience, its questions.

Built for those called to deepen their sense of who they are and bring more love, joy, and purpose into the world.

About

A Path Forward for Those
Who Feel the Pull

A program built to hold African Americans' deepest questions — and to generate answers and actions that ripple outward into the communities and institutions to which they return.

Praying angel figures sculpted with African features on cathedral facade Dakar
Philosophy

Not Just Information —
Transformation

Most programs offer content. The Ark Experience offers a container — a journey through honest reckoning, ancestral memory, and sacred practice — one that allows something deeper than knowledge to take root.

Grounded in Howard Thurman's theology of the inner life and the Black Panther Party's Ten-Point Program, it holds both the wound and the possibility at once.

Stained glass windows Dakar church
The Foundations

Two Voices.
One Calling.

Two frameworks that together hold the inner life and the collective demand for freedom.

Howard Thurman · Theologian & Mystic

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do that — because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
— Howard Thurman

Black Panther Party · Ten-Point Program, 1966

  1. 1We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black community.
  2. 2We want full employment for our people.
  3. 3We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of our Black community.
  4. 4We want decent housing fit for the shelter of human beings.
  5. 5We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in present-day society.

The Ark Experience holds both — the inner life and the collective demand. Coming alive, and building the world that makes it possible.

Vision

A Replicable Model
for Deep Transformation

Cohorts of twelve, held with care across 370 days. Each participant returns home carrying a transtransformation that ripples outward — into families, congregations, neighborhoods, and organizations.

Nancy Duranteau Founder and Director of The Ark Experience
Founder & Director

Nancy Duranteau

Formerly Chief Learning Officer at UCSF, Nancy Duranteau has spent decades at the intersection of learning design, organizational transformation, and spiritual deepening. The Ark Experience is the culmination of that work — and of a deep personal conviction that a journey rooted in history, ancestry, and calling is one of the most urgent needs of our time.

The program draws on a network of scholars, pilgrimage guides, community leaders, and spiritual directors whose wisdom shapes every movement of the journey.

From the Founder

Hear Why This Was Built

Press to listen
0:00 —

A Spiritual Journey of Identity, Ancestry & Purpose

The Ark
Experience

arkpilgrimage.com
The Journey

Four Movements.
One Unfolding Life.

Beginning where African Americans are today — traveling backward through history — coming full circle to propel each participant forward.

Bay Area, California

I — Awakening

The journey begins at home. Over two days, participants gather as a cohort — establishing community, naming the spiritual questions they carry, and orienting themselves to the crossing ahead. Grounded in Howard Thurman's vision of the inner life as a site of freedom, and in the Black Panther Party's insistence on collective self-determination, this movement asks: Who am I, as a descendant of Africans brought to America in chains, standing here today?

2 Days · Bay Area, California
Bay Bridge at sunset San Francisco
Montgomery, Alabama

II — Remembering

Montgomery holds the weight of American history in its soil. Over four days, participants engage in lament, truth-telling, and communal prayer — facing the legacy of slavery and its long aftermath with unflinching care. This is not tourism. It is a spiritual reckoning that opens the ground for what the Becoming movement will plant.

4 Days · Montgomery, Alabama
Mothers of Gynecology statues Montgomery
Senegal, West Africa

III — Becoming

The heart of the Ark Experience. Nine days in Senegal — standing where ancestors were held before crossing, encountering living African vitality, and navigating transformation through discernment. Participants move through the four listenings of the Purpose Pathway (framework developed by Nancy Duranteau): What is calling me? What have I remembered? What grounds me? What are the first steps forward?

9 Days · Senegal, West Africa
African Renaissance Monument Dakar with crowd on steps
Senegal sunset through palm trees Lompoul

In the desert, the questions that matter finally have room to breathe.

Home — Yearlong Integration

IV — Being

Transformation does not end at the airport. The Being movement stretches across 370 days — the same span Noah spent on the Ark — with structured cohort gatherings, ongoing spiritual practices, and peer accountability. The year culminates in a Day-370 public ceremony of testimony and commissioning — each participant names who they have become and is sent forth, witnessed by their cohort, to live it.

370 Days · Home
Community ceremony MAAFA
For Funders & Partners

Investing in the
Transformation of a Generation

Spiritually rooted, historically grounded journey of transformation for African Americans ready to move through the inheritance of rupture toward their fullest potential.

African Renaissance Monument Dakar from distance

African Renaissance Monument, Dakar — emerging from history, reaching toward the horizon.

Why the Ark Experience

The Unmet Need

The United Nations has designated the transatlantic slave trade a crime against humanity — severing millions from language, ancestry, and a continuous sense of self. Four centuries later, its consequences persist in ways that existing programs were never designed to address.

The Ark Experience was built to meet this specific need: a structured, pilgrimage-based program that honors what African Americans carry — and helps them move through it toward reclamation, purpose, and joy.

✦
Pilgrimage as Pedagogy

Physical movement across sites of historical and ancestral significance creates embodied learning that no classroom can replicate. The journey is the curriculum.

✦
Rigorous Evaluation

An independent evaluation team documents participant outcomes across all six cohorts — providing longitudinal data on spiritual, vocational, and communal transformation.

✦
Sustainability by Design

A layered funding model — participant contributions, philanthropic support, and institutional partnerships — carries the Ark Experience well beyond its founding cohorts.

✦
Led by Expertise

Founder Nancy Duranteau brings decades of learning design and organizational leadership, alongside deep personal spiritual deepening and pilgrimage experience.

Get in Touch

Ready to Learn More?

We welcome conversations with funders and partners aligned with this vision.

Contact

Begin the
Conversation

Whether you are a prospective participant, a partner organization, or a funder, Nancy welcomes the conversation.

Nancy Duranteau

Founder & Director, The Ark Experience

nancy@arkpilgrimage.com

Je suis Noé — je construis.

I am Noah — I am building.