These pages raise selected historical and contemporary issues on the slave trade and African history. They relate to my first novel "Ama, A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade" and to the sequel "Brave Music of a Distant Drum".
The pages concern:
Authenticity/plausibility How authentic is the historical background of Ama,how plausible?
Middle Passage in fiction
I have just finished teaching a quarter course on the Atlantic slave trade and am struck again by the apparent self-imposed limitations of the Middle Passage experience in major African-American literary works . . .Ralph Austen
Memories of the Middle Passage
John Weiss asks: How long did memory of thecrossing survive in personal African-American consciousness in the last century?
African participation in slavery and the slave trade Listserv discussion threads
Atlantic slave trade in the curriculum of American schools
Is the history of the Atlantic Slave Trade included in the school curriculum in the US and other countries in the Americas which have a substantial population of people of African descent? If it is not (a) why isn't it? (b) should it be? (c) why should it be?
Racism
How can America come to terms with racism if we don't yet have ways of representing and talking about the single most significant experience in black American history, the experience of slavery? Edward M Brunner
Reparations Are reparations due? To whom? How?