Book: Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
Date: Friday, April 29th, 7pm
Summary: Abducted from Africa, sold in America.
The compelling true story of one of the last survivors of the Atlantic Slave Trade, Barracoon recounts one man’s fight for freedom. Fifty years after the abolition of slavery, Cudjo Lewis was illegally smuggled as “Black Cargo”. He spent nearly six years in captivity before finally being emancipated.
Through a series of interviews with Zora Neale Hurston, Cudjo casts light on the circumstances of his capture and his detention in a barracoon, a holding cell for slaves, before embarking on his journey through the Middle Passage, to his arrival in the Unites States on the Alabama River.
Cudjo also sheds light upon the African culture and narrates traditional tales and games played by his men.
Barracoon brilliantly illuminates the tragedy of slavery and one life forever defined by it.