For this 3rd Friday’s Turn the Page, I have decided to challenge myself and read the book Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo by Zora Neale Hurston. I am calling this journey challenging because as some of you know, this book was meant to be published a long time ago, but was not because no one wanted to read about the slave experience of a man who would implicate the people in Africa. It was thought to be a book which could tarnish the integrity of the movement. Which, even now, I would understand. To tell this story aloud, is to have some who were directly involved, or their ancestors, or white people who feel resentful of the history of slavery--mostly as it relates to talking about white privilege and such, to feel vindicated in what occurred because African people were complicit.

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