Middle Passage Review

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(More customer reviews)This book was mandatory for my African American Literature course and I am glad that it was. It is impossible for anyone to imagine today what it would have been like for Africans to be taken from the comfort of their homes to be slaves in America. The only thing we could compare it to is being abducted by aliens if you really think about it. They were overtaken by people who looked very different than they did and who spoke an unknown language. They were put into giant ships of the likes they had never seen and many times, they were branded and always chained below decks. Many thought they were being taken to a foreign land to be eaten and often times the slavers would put slaves in groups with different tribes so that they could not communicate or comfort eachother due to a language barrier. They knew nothing of the world around them as people do today. The concept is, in truth, almost impossible to imagine.
Johnson studied about Middle Passage for something like seventeen years before writing this book, not to mention another six years studying maritime science. To be sure, there are a lot of fantastical occurrences within the book but that is why it is called fiction. I believe he does a phenomenal job with the character of Rutherford Calhoun...he's a liar, gambler, womanizer, and thief but there is something about him that puts the reader on his side. You will find yourself rooting for him all the way through the book.
The novel itself is indeed very graphic in description and includes things such as cannibalism so, if you have a weak stomach, BEWARE. The best things about this novel are its extremely dark humor,its fast pace, and its irony. As an avid reader, there is nothing I appreciate more than someone who can take a horrific experience and make it simultaneously poignant and funny. Not only is this a way of putting a face on the early days of slavery but it is a highly entertaining piece of fiction. I would recommend it to anyone looking for adventure on the high seas!

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Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives Review

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(More customer reviews)"...Oh freedom, Oh freedom, Oh freedom over me. And before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free"
__Old Negro Spiritual
The words of the spiritual above must not have been uttered to these beautiful human beings who have graciously allowed interviewers from the 1930's Governments Works Progress Administration to chronicle their life stories. For if the words above had been uttered, the slave experience, from an intimate and painful point of view, would never have received the credence they due. Tales of slavery are still passed down from generation to generation, and traditions still are followed but to see a book like Unchained Memories is special. Quite simply, this is a beautiful book. I'm so thrilled to have been given the opportunity to read it and experience it and learn from it. I can treat the book as a textbook, a factual accounting of the lives of former slaves who have wonderful stories that they don't mind sharing with the world. For that reason alone, this book has earned a permanent place on my coffee table, for all who enter into my house to experience. Something about the actual words of former slaves bound in book form validates an agonizing time in American History.
Unchained Memories is well researched and magnificently laid out. At the beginning of every chapter is an introductory text that accounts for the tenure of the time, followed by a poignant quote and then brief narratives begin. My one regret is that the narratives are so short, when biographers obviously spent a great deal of time with these people. I am grateful that there is an extensive bibliography at the back so that I can, at some point, go and read the entire account by the former slave. Oh where will I find the time? If you read this book, I would highly suggest that you get a copy of the HBO documentary of the same name and watch it as well. There is nothing like "hearing" the words spoken by African American actors of today in the vernacular of the time.
I'm glad that Unchained Memories was published, and quite fittingly made its debut during Black History Month. These former slaves are the reason why Black History Month is perpetuated now and a fitting tribute for remembering from whence we as a nation have come.

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Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora Review

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(More customer reviews)Stephanie Smallwood has written a book entitled "Saltwater Slavery" that aims, as she says, to provide a linear analysis of the commodification process that transformed Africans into slaves. Her focus is on enslavement in the Gold Coast and trans-Atlantic trade during the 17th and early 18th centuries.
The book is broken into three sections - Capture and enslavement in the Gold Coast, transformation from human to commodity, and the African Diaspora in America. The first section is necessarily short and merely sets the tone for Smallwood's argument - that the enslavement process was a matter of commodifying humans into marketable objects.
The second section, the commodification of these people into objects, is well researched and eminently readable. Smallwood is especially powerful when evoking images of the horrors that individuals underwent during the process.
The third section, the African Diaspora, is also short and to the point, but does not benefit Smallwood's argument as much as the first two sections do.
Overall, this is a good book, but has some minor flaws - first, the Diaspora section is (as previously mentioned) a little weak, and the fact that Smallwood focuses on the Trans-Atlantic Commerce between the Gold Coast and the British Caribbean leaves something to be desired, since both Virginia & South Carolina were important colonies that had slaves during this period, but are largely omitted from the work.

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Strength to Love Review

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(More customer reviews)Because of his inspiring leadership during the United States civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and because he was assassinated while serving in that capacity, Martin Luther King, Jr., has become an iconic figure in popular culture. And I fear that King the "legend" has become so big that people may be paying insufficient attention to King the writer. If you want to experience King's insight and power as a writer, read "Strength to Love." This collection of sermons is an excellent summation of the philosophy he developed as a Christian clergyman, social critic, and advocate for the African-American community.
Most of the sermons in the book begin with a Bible verse which ties in to the theme of each sermon. One of the main themes of the collection as a whole is King's passionate denunciation of racial prejudice and of the tangible injustice that springs from that phenomenon.
King is also very critical of those sectors of the Christian world that have historically used the Bible and Christian theology as tools for promoting slavery, American racial segregation, and South African apartheid. Indeed, in the sermon entitled "A knock at midnight" he refers to the Christian churches' historic support of racism as one of "the shameful tragedies of history." And he is also critical of those Black churches that have reduced Christianity to either a frenzied form of "entertainment" or a snobbish social club. These are hard words that contemporary Christians need to hear and heed.
King's own vision of Christianity is bold and revolutionary. And this vision is firmly grounded in the person of Jesus, whom he describes as "the world's most dedicated nonconformist." While strongly Christian, King is nonetheless respectful of the truths found in other religious traditions.
One fascinating sermon includes King's balanced critique of Communism. In another sermon, he praises Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, who greatly influenced King's philosophy of nonviolence. Ultimately, King's vision and compassion is vast: in "The man who was a fool," he writes, "All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality."
King's radicalism, his willingness to critique the failings of the Christian world, and his rejection of a rigidly fundamentalist style of Christianity have made him a target of ugly criticism from some more conservative Christians. (Consider, for example, author Paul McGlasson; in his 1994 book "Another Gospel" he condemns King as a "false prophet.") And I fear that others have tried to "sanitize" King's strong message. And that is why "Strength to Love" is such an important book. It is an important historical document of a critical era. And it is also a bold proposal of a Christian path that is compassionate, committed, and open to new truth.

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"If there is one book Martin Luther King, Jr. has written that people consistently tell me has changed their lives, it is Strength to Love." So wrote Coretta Scott King. She continued: "I believe it is because this book best explains the central element of Martin Luther King, Jr.' s philosophy of nonviolence: His belief in a divine, loving presence that binds all life. That insight, luminously conveyed in this classic text, here presented in a new and attractive edition, hints at the personal transformation at the root of social justice: " By reaching into and beyond ourselves and tapping the transcendent moral ethic of love, we shall overcome these evils." In these short meditative and sermonic pieces, some of them composed in jails and all of them crafted during the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights struggle, Dr. King articulated and espoused in a deeply personal compelling way his commitment to justice and to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual conversion that makes his work as much a blueprint today for Christian discipleship as it was then. Individual readers, as well as church groups and students will find in this work a challenging yet energizing vision of God and redemptive love.

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