October 19, 2011 | 12:04 PM | By

Royals Make a Home in the D.C. Area

Here’s another reason to love the D.C. area: we’re home to royalty! The Washington Post recently profiled a number of foreign royals from countries such as Ethiopia and Afghanistan. Many of those featured landed in our region because of political turmoil in their homelands. Some were born into their positions, but not all. Take Kofi Boateng, regional king of Ghana who represents the Washington area. He was elected by the Ghanian community in the D.C. area.


The entire royal court is replicated in Washington, complete with a chief linguist, who in days gone by spoke to the public in the royals’ stead. There’s a royal adviser, who works by day as a driver for the elderly. The queen mother is a businesswoman who runs a West African “one-stop shopping store,” in an Alexandria strip mall.

“We want to blend our culture with the politics of America,” the king [Boateng] says. In a sign that they are truly trying to combine American ideas and notions of a divine ruler, they will continue to have elections, but the committee did away with term limits. They are royals, after all.

— www.washingtonpost.com