CAPTURE
"In 1976, the African-American writer Alex Haley traced the story of his black family in the popular book Roots. He discovered that his "furthest-back-person" in america was Kunta Kinte, a Gambian who had been brought in chains from West Africa to Annapolis, Maryland, in the 1760s aboard the English slave ship Lord Ligonier. Haley (who also wrote the powerful Autobiography of Malcolm X) was fortunate in knowing the name of his first American forebear and in being able to locate the exact ship on which he arrived. But the facts themselves are remarkably typical. On average, the furthest- back New World ancestor for any African American today would have reached these shores shortly before the American Revolution, just as Kunta Kinte did. (By comparison, the largest migrations of Europeans and asians to the United states began in the late 19th century and grew larger in the twentieth century. So the average white resident of the United States has a far shorter American ancestry, as does the average Asian-American citizen)."
~To Make Our World Anew, by Robin D.G. Kelley, Earl Lewis
Ise MASSA'S FIDDLA
At minute 3:55 Fiddler tells sets about convincing an Afrikan that he is a nigger. “Yo name is Toby!” But Kunta (intact yut) stands up and prioritizes his real name.
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