Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005 - Hardcover

Campbell, James T.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1594200831 ISBN 13: 9781594200830

Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The, 2006

Synopsis

A three-century history of African-American journeys back to Africa from an America where depicted travelers or their ancestors were slaves traces the experiences of such people as W. E. B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the founders of Liberia. 30,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author:

James T. Campbell (B.A. Yale University, 1980; Ph.D. Stanford University, 1989) is an associate professor of American civilization, Africana studies and history at Brown University. His research focuses on African American history and on the wider history of the black Atlantic. He is the author of Songs of Zion: The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa (Oxford University Press, 1995), which in 1996 was awarded the Organization of American Historians' Frederick Jackson Turner Prize and the Carl Sandburg Literary Award for Nonfiction.

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. Historian Campbell, whose Songs of Zion (1995) traced African Methodist Episcopal Church's history and garnered multiple awards, here traces the travels and travails of diverse African-Americans-missionary, settler, journalist, tourist, immigrant-who journeyed to Africa over 200-plus years. Campbell's prologue recalls the 18th century adventures of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (a literate, Wolof-speaking Muslim brought to the U.S. as a slave, whose letter to his father eventually resulted in his return to West Africa); his book ends with the experiences of black journalists covering strife in present day Sierra Leone and Liberia. Relying heavily on traveler's journals and memoirs, Campbell revisits Africa through the eyes of such lesser-known 19th century figures as freeman and abolitionist Paul Cuffe, A.M.E. reverend Daniel Coker, and back-to-Africa nationalist Martin Delany. He also brings to life turn-of-the-20th-century figures like Charles Spencer Smith and William Sheppard. Accounts of Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, George Schuyler, Richard Wright, and Era Bell Thompson all offer lesser known details of famous lives. A bibliographic essay is particularly valuable for its breadth and judgment. Cambell uses an unexpected conceit to deliver a wealth of history.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1594200831
• ISBN 13: 9781594200830
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544