Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005 By James T. Campbell
Middle passage simple definition
Great historical overview of Pan Africanism in action throughout the African Diaspora James T Campbell Very readable for a substantial academic piece of non fiction A sweeping history of slave trade slavery and African American migration back to Africa movements A very Hunan treatment of lots of historical figures James T Campbell This book is almost TOO readable It kind of kills me There is some great stuff here but I didn t latch onto it much Great discussion of black missionaries James T Campbell A groundbreaking history of African American journeys back to Africa over the course of three centuries a book whose enormous accomplishment reveals to us that without understanding the long evolving place of Africa in the African American imagination our understanding of American history is woefully incomplete In the four centuries after Columbus voyage to the New World some twelve million Africans were loaded into the holds of European ships and carried to the Americas as slaves For most the middle passage across the Atlantic was truly a voyage of no return But beginning in the eighteenth century a small number of African Americans found their way back to their ancestral continent The roster includes many of the central figures in African American intellectual and political life including Martin Delany Langston Hughes W. Book Middle passages book Malcolm X and Maya Angelou to name only a few As James T Campbell shows in this marvelous book these journeys illuminate not only the enduring importance of Africa in African American life but also the changing contours of African American life in the United States Middle Passages recounts than two hundred years of black American encounters with Africa from the arrival of the first liberated slaves in what would become Liberia to the photojournalism and heritage tourism of the twenty first century Together the stories recounted here of journeys celebrated and obscure journeys replete with irony and tragedy but also hope and inspiration chart the history of African Americans ever changing relationship with Africa and by extension their complex often painful relationship with the United States As the book makes wonderfully clear to ask What is Africa to Me the question famously posed by Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen is also to ask What is America to me and perhaps What am I to America Middle Passages African American Journeys to Africa 1787 2005The subtitle tells it all This book chronicles the return to Africa by various African Americans Blacks Negroes Coloreds Afro Americans from 1787 2005 Many of the famous are included duBois Angelou etc but the obscure and forgotten are also described to make a point James T Campbell Only got 2 3 through it before I had to return it to the library the day I left town but this is an interesting if overly anecdotal account of why and how African Americans set their sights on Africa The fumbling foundings of Sierra Leone and Liberia was especially amazing Campbell is convincing in how the expectations presumptions and purposes that Americans of all races put upon Africa says about their expectations presumptions and purposes for America But at least in what I read Campbell doesn t explore this overmuch Instead he simply shares stories of people with interesting and often hugely influential journeys to Africa I was especially excited about the accounts of twentieth century writers who set off such as Langston Hughes and WEB DuBois but alas alackit was here where I had to return the book James T Campbell Excellent multidimensional history of the complexconvoluted relationship between African Americansfrom the time of initial enslavement to the present with the homeland Africa a crash course in the insanity of colonialism and its pernicious effects on the continent as well as in the grievous injury still ongoing in many countriesn Africa as a result of recent civil wars and the many failed foiled self governments. Middle passage ceremonies and port marker B duBoisand MayaAngelou et alia whose journeys intersectn fascinating and surprising waysas well as telling the tale of Africa with especial focus on Sierra Leone Liberia and Ghanaplaces of origin and re emigration for many African Americans. Middle Passages kindle paperwhite at a rich 300 years of history an insightful travel guide to a complex worlda meditation on the nature of race and culture a political discourse and roadmap to political follies and much How did Africa find itself in the bedeviled position it is now What part of black Americans search for identity can be gleaned from a place as diverse as modern Africa What do we need to know about our historyblack and white to understand ourselves as Americans What can we do to make peace with the past and how do we stop closing our eyes to the effects of racism at home and genocide abroad Strongly recommended and essential reading for a complicated world James T Campbell Rarely do I feel a 500 book ends too soon This one does From the first page to the last it is an outstanding read and a marvelous work of historical analysis Outstanding James T Campbell So many different journeys some new insights into people I knew about and introductions to people I had not yet learned about Lots of insight into connections btw the US and African different periods etc Favorite part that George Schuyler s DuBois character was named Agamemnon Shakespeare Beard James T Campbell.
. Middle passage charles johnson analysis B Du Bois Eslanda Robeson Richard Wright Martin Luther King Jr, Middle passage food He manages in 500 pages to give us compelling refreshing and meaningful glimpses into the lives of both ordinary folk and legendary personalities Langston HughesRichard Wright W.E.Campbell s approach is steadfastclear headed and free of cant.E.The entire book is a jewel