A chorus of extraordinary voices comes together to tell one of
history's great epics: the four-hundred-year journey of African
Americans from 1619 to the present--edited by Ibram X. Kendi, author
of How to Be an Antiracist,
and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set
the World on Fire.
The story begins in
1619--a year before the Mayflower--when the White Lion disgorges
"some 20-and-odd Negroes" onto the shores of Virginia,
inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United
States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans,
descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to
this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression,
visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary
lives passing through extraordinary history.
Four Hundred
Souls is a unique one-volume "community" history of
African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain,
have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a
five-year period of that four-hundred-year span. The writers explore
their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays,
short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach
history from various perspectives: through the eyes of towering
historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people; through
places, laws, and objects. While themes of resistance and struggle,
of hope and reinvention, course through the book, this collection of
diverse pieces from ninety different minds, reflecting ninety
different perspectives, fundamentally deconstructs the idea that
Africans in America are a monolith--instead it unlocks the startling
range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within the
community of Blackness.
This is a history
that illuminates our past and gives us new ways of thinking about our
future, written by the most vital and essential voices of our
present.
