matthew mckeon
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- Joined
- Oct 3, 2005
I just finished this book by the famous African American folklorist Zora Neale Hurston. It's an extended interview with Cudjo Lewis conducted in 1927. Lewis had been born in western Africa, captured by the soldiers of the King of Dahomey, and sold to a slave ship captain. The ship, the Clothida was one of the last slave ships to land in the United States. Lewis lived as a slave outside of Mobile, Alabama, then as a free man. Free man in Africa, captive in a barracoon, slave, then American citizen, he sums up the African American experience in one lifetime.
Lewis's accounts is one of only a handful of first hand accounts of the over twelve million Africans who endured the Middle Passage to land in the New World.
Lewis maintains a double identity: an American, and an African, a Christian and a pagan. He is an American citizen, but also a founder of a small community of transplanted Africans, distinct from the American born blacks.
Lewis's accounts is one of only a handful of first hand accounts of the over twelve million Africans who endured the Middle Passage to land in the New World.
Lewis maintains a double identity: an American, and an African, a Christian and a pagan. He is an American citizen, but also a founder of a small community of transplanted Africans, distinct from the American born blacks.
Bringing the