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

Preface / David Levering Lewis -- Introduction: What is Africa to me? -- Prologue: Ayuba's journey -- Windward coast -- Representing the race -- Emigration or extermination -- Mundele Ndom -- So long, so far away -- The spell of Africa -- Native son, American daughter -- Black star -- Counting the bodies -- Epilogue: The language we cry in.;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. Penguin announces a prestigious new series under presiding editor Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Many works of history deal with the journeys of blacks in bondage from Africa to the United States along the "middle passage," but there is also a rich and little examined history of African Americans traveling in the opposite direction. In Middle Passages , award-winning historian James T. Campbell vividly recounts more than two centuries of African American journeys to Africa, including the experiences of such extraordinary figures as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, Richard Wright, Malcolm X, and Maya Angelou. A truly groundbreaking work, Middle Passages offers a unique perspective on African Americans' ever-evolving relationship with their ancestral homeland, as well as their complex, often painful relationship with the United States.