Africans in America: America's Journey Through Slavery

Designed to complement a PBS series of the same name, this is much more than a companion book. A monumental research effort wed with fine writing has produced a work that can stand on its own. Studded with a dozen short stories by Johnson, the NBA-winning author of Middle Passage, and filled with arresting period illustrations, it is ultimately shaped by journalist/poet Smith's (Big Towns, Big Talk) beautiful narrative. There is plenty to praise, in particular the drawing together of several slave narratives and other accounts to flesh out the true picture of slave lives in this country. The ugly reality of the ""triangle trade"" and the initial confusion of newly enslaved Africans are fully realized, while the apparent hypocrisy and contradictory reasoning of the Founding Fathers is given a human face. The impact of the Caribbean experience, America's western expansion, and black abolitionism are also illuminated. Perhaps the most riveting moments begin early in the journey, at the point when slavery becomes synonymous with blackness in colonial America. Heartbreaking setbacks include the forced migration of slave communities deeper and deeper south, as well as the kidnapping and forced enslavement of free children from the streets of Philadelphia. The struggle of whites against slavery and the divisions within the abolitionist movement are discussed frankly, another in a list of refreshing surprises. While American society can be seen as the logical end of this dreadful institution, the story of all those who struggled to end it is indeed liberating. Although lavishly illustrated, this is not a coffee-table book. It deserves a curious and enlightened reader. (Oct.)