Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I loved this book, but because I had to return it to the public library, I had to copy the family tree at the beginning of the book to help me remember all of the people.
The story takes us from 18th century Ghana, back and forth across the Atlantic to follow the lives of the descendants of two half-sisters, children of "Big Man," the Chief of the Asante. The chapters go back and forth from one side of the family tree to the other, from Ghana to the U.S. and back so that we see history unfold for slaves in the U.S. while the wars between tribes direct the slave trade from Gold Coast to the Americas.
We read of the migration of former slaves to the North, to Baltimore, Harlem and beyond. To the convict leasing system in the coal mines. To the impact of heroin addiction, the war on drugs.
On the African side of the family tree, we read of James Richard Collins who changes the path of the Chief by marrying for love. Each chapter is a new story taking us closer to the present time.
The Author was born in Ghana, but grew up in Alabama. The book was well-researched to give the reader a full understanding of the history on both sides of the Atlantic. An awesome task.
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Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I have fallen in love with Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern, the Gaither Sisters. I was late discovering this series for "Middle Grades" with great historical lessons.
It started with "One Crazy Summer," with the sisters visiting their wayward mother in Oakland, CA. Then the aftermath and return home to Brooklyn in "P.S. Be Eleven."
The latest installment is "Gone Crazy in Alabama" when Pa sends the girls "Down South" to meet the relatives on the farm. I so much enjoyed the voices of the girls as they complete each others' explanations in an almost poetic harmony. They remind me so much of my middle sister, my niece, and me.
I was so charmed that every time I opened the book at the next chapter, I couldn't hold back the smile on my face. Their adventures, learning the family history, helping gather the fresh eggs, and help milk the cow reminded me of days in Forsythe, Georgia, so long ago.
I was happy just reminiscing until something went terribly wrong, when I found myself in the middle of the night, with an unexpected page-turner. No spoilers here. You have to read it for yourself.
Rita Williams-Garcia is a winner.
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Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
You know the story. Solomon Northup, a free black man living in New York is kidnapped and sold into slavery, where he struggles to regain his freedom after twelve years. I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie. So many of my friends have said the movie was difficult to watch.
Of course there is violence and torture in the narrative of Solomon who has to take on the name of Platt to avoid further floggings. But beyond the descriptions of the vilest nature of slavery in these United States, we hear the voice of Solomon who sees his life as evidence against the myth that slaves are better off on the plantation.
As a side note, I remember the history books of my elementary school days during the years of Jim Crow, saying slaves were happy and sang a lot.
What is most fascinating for me about this book is its being published and achieving best seller status before it went into obscurity, only to be rediscovered in the 1960's. What a treasure this book is.
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The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When I read the dedication for this book, "For Ma and Jade who loved a good whopper," I knew I was in for a wild ride.
I first read about John Brown in high school history, where he was barely mentioned as a fanatic abolitionist who waged a war to free the slaves. Since that time many books have been written about John Brown by African Americans who have made him more of a cult figure and reject the notion that a white man would have to be crazy to wage a war to free the slaves.
This book is historical fiction based on fictitious notes by Henry Shackleford who claimed to have been the only Negro to survive John Brown's raid on the Harper's Ferry arsenal in 1859. He claimed to have been able to do this by being dressed as a girl for over four years while he accompanied John Brown and his "army" through Kansas, Missouri, and with him to meet Frederick Douglass in Boston.
It's a wild shoot 'em up story, hilarious and unbelievable. A real whopper.
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I bet Michelle knows the words:Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing
by James Weldon JohnsonLift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list'ning skies;
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun
Of our new day begun,
Let us march on! Till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet, with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered;
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by thy might
Led us into the light:
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee;
Shadowed beneath thy hand
May we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.
by Langston Hughes
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
