Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo by Zora Neale Hurston

A major literary event: a newly published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, with a foreword from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade—abducted from Africa on the last "Black Cargo" ship to arrive in the United States.

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.

In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo’s past—memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.

Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjo’s unique vernacular, and written from Hurston’s perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth-century, Barracoon masterfully illustrates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.

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Full Transcript Of Bishop Michael Curry's Royal Wedding Sermon

There were many memorable moments at the Royal wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, but one that has many talking is the sermon given by Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry. The 13 minute sermon featured many memorable moments including the Bishop saying, 'Two people fell in love and we all showed up'.

Check out the full transcript below:

“And now in the name of our loving liberating and life-giving God, father, son, and holy spirit, amen. From the song of Solomon in the Bible, set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is as strong as death, passion, fears as its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods. Drown it out.

The late Dr. Martin Luther King once said and I quote, ‘We must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love, and when we do that, we will make of this old world a new world.’

Love is the only way. There's power in love. Don't underestimate it. Don't even over sentimentalize it. There's power, power in love. If you don't believe me, think about a time when you first fell in love. The whole world seemed to center around you and your beloved. Well, there's power, power in love, not just in its romantic forms, but any form, any shape of love.

There's a certain sense in which when you are loved and you know it, when someone cares for you and you know it, when you love and you show it, it actually feels right. There's something right about it. And there's a reason for it. The reason has to do with the source. We were made by a power of love and our lives were meant and are meant to be lived in that love. That's why we are here. Ultimately the source of love is God himself. The source of all of our lives.

There's an old medieval poem that says, where true love is found, god himself is there. The new testament says it this way, beloved, let us love one another because love is of god and those who love are born of God and know God, those who do not love do not know God, why? For God is love. There's power in love. There's power in love to help and heal when nothing else can. There's power in love, to lift up and liberate when nothing else will. There's power in love to show us the way to live. Set me as a seal on your heart. A seal on your arm. For love, it is strong.

But love is not only about a young couple. Now the power of love is demonstrated by the fact that we're all here. Two young people fell in love and we all showed up. But it's not just for and about a young couple who we rejoice with. It's more than that. Jesus of Nazareth on one occasion was asked by a lawyer the sum of the essence of the teachings of Moses and he went back and reached back into the Hebrew scriptures and Jesus said, ‘you shall love the lord, your god, with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. This is the first and great commandment.’

And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. And then in Matthews' version, he added, he said on these two, love of God and love of neighbor, hang all the law, all the prophets, everything that Moses wrote, everything in the holy prophets, everything in the scriptures, everything that God has been trying to tell the world, love god. Love your neighbors. And while you're at it, love yourself.

Someone once said that Jesus began most revolutionary movement in all of human history, a movement grounded in the unconditional love of God for the world. And a movement mandating people to live that love. And in so doing, to change not only their lives but the very life of the world itself. I'm talking about some power, real power, power to change the world.

If you don't believe me, well, there were some old slaves in America's antebellum south who explained the dynamic power of love and why it has the power, they explained it this way, they sang a spiritual, even in the midst of their captivity, something that can make things right, to make the wounded whole.

“There is a balm in Gilead to heal the soul. They said if you cannot preach like Peter and you cannot pray like Paul, you just tell the love of Jesus how he died to save us all. Oh, that's the balm in Gilead.”

He didn't die for anything he could get out of it. Jesus did not get an honorary doctorate for dying. He didn't—he wasn't getting anything out of it. He gave up his life. He sacrificed his life for the good of others, for the good of the other, for the well-being of the world, for us.

That's what love is. Love is not selfish and self-centered. Love can be sacrificial, and in so doing, becomes redemptive. And that way of unselfish sacrificial redemptive love, changes lives and it can change this world.

If you don't believe me, just stop and think and imagine, think and imagine, well, think and imagine a world where love is the way. Imagine our homes and families when love is the way. Imagine neighborhoods and communities where love is the way. Imagine governments and nations where love is the way. Imagine business and commerce when love is the way. Imagine this tired old world when love is the way.

When love is the way, unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive, when love is the way, then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again. When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook. When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the Earth will be a sanctuary. When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields, down by the riverside, to study war no more. When love is the way, there's plenty good room, plenty good room, for all of God's children because when love is the way, we actually treat each other well, like we are actually family. When love is the way, we know that God is the source of us all and we are brothers and sisters, children of God. My brothers and sisters, that's a new heaven, a new Earth, a new world, a new human family.

And let me tell you something, old Solomon was right in the Old Testament, there's fire. With this I will sit down. We got to get you all married. The French Jesuit was one of the great minds and spirits of the 20th century, a Roman Catholic priest, scientist, a scholar, a mystic, in some of his writings he said from his scientific background as well as his theological one, some of his writings, he said, as others have, that the discovery or invention or harnessing of fire was one of the great, one of the great scientific and technological discoveries in all of human history.

Fire, to a great extent, made human civilization possible. Fire, made it possible to cook food and to provide sanitary ways of eating, which reduced the spread of disease in its time. Fire made it possible to heat warm environments and thereby made human migration around the world a possibility, even into colder climates. Fire made it possible—there is no—there was no Bronze Age without fire. No Iron Age without fire. No Industrial Revolution without fire. The advances of science and technology are greatly dependent on the human ability and capacity to take fire and use it for human good.

Anybody get here in a car today? An automobile? Nod your heads if you did. I'm guessing—I know there were some carriages. But those of us who came in cars, fire, the controlled harnessed fire, made that possible. Now that the Bible says and I believe that Jesus walked on the water, but I have to tell you, I didn't walk across the Atlantic Ocean to get here. Controlled fire in that plane got me here. Fire makes it possible for us to text and tweet and e-mail and Instagram and Facebook and socially be dysfunctional with each other. Fire makes all of that possible.

And he said, fire was one of the greatest discoveries in all of human history. He then went on to say, if humanity ever harnesses the energy of fire again, if humanity ever captures the energy of love, it will be the second time in history that we have discovered fire.

Dr. King was right. We must discover love. The redemptive power of love and when we do that, we will make of this old world a new world. My brother, my sister, God love you, God bless you, and my god hold us all in those all mighty hands of love.”

NBA Hall of Famer Bill Russell released from hospital

Basketball Hall of Famer, and Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell was released from the hospital Saturday after an overnight stay for dehydration.

Russell later posted a tweet which included a photo of him holding a glass of water. He indicated that he was OK and ready for Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals.

Back home got my water getting ready for the #CelticsVsCavs Go get a win @celtics @celticslife @nbcsports @si @espn @twittersports #CUsRise  @thescore @tmzsports @bleacherreport Thank You again to everyone for the well wishes strange to read them when ur still alive! @NBA @msnbc pic.twitter.com/D030VhOWvd

— TheBillRussell (@RealBillRussell) May 19, 2018

Meghan Markle may not be the first black royal

The nuptials of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on Saturday will mark a break from royal-wedding tradition in a number of ways, from the wedding cake to the invitations. Among the wedding’s most significant deviations from the past is the very fact that the bride is Meghan Markle: as a divorced, American, Catholic-raised woman of color, she falls into into several categories that stand out on the British royal family tree.

But some experts believe that Markle — whose father, Thomas Markle, is white and whose mother, Doria Ragland, is African-American — wouldn’t be the first black royal in British history.

One leading theory is that the distinction of being Britain’s first black Queen or first biracial Queen may belong to Queen Charlotte, who became Queen when she married King George III, who reigned from 1760 to 1820. Born Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the German princess was 17 when she married the 22-year-old British monarch, whom she met for the first time about six hours after arriving in Britain. They had 15 children together, 13 of whom lived to adulthood.

According to Mario De Valdes y Cocom, who researched her roots for a PBS Frontline documentary, Queen Charlotte is directly descended from a branch of the Portuguese royal family that had its roots in Africa. When the King of Portugal in the 1200s conquered the town of Faro from the Moors — the Muslim population of the Iberian peninsula, with links to North Africa — he took the governor’s daughter as a lover, and ended up having three children with her, Valdes recently told the Washington Post. Valdes’ research suggests that one of those children married into the de Sousa family, and he has traced six different lines from 15th-century Portuguese noblewoman Margarita de Castro y Sousa down to Queen Charlotte.

There’s evidence that people back then appeared to have noticed that she looked like she may have come from a mixed-race background. The Queen’s personal physician, Baron Stockmar, described her as having “a true mulatto face,” and a poem about the coronation ceremony that was written following her wedding that described her as, “Descended from the warlike Vandal race, / She still preserves that title in her face. / Tho’ shone their triumphs o’er Numidia’s plain…” (This poem is confusing, as a piece of evidence: Numidia was a North African kingdom, but the Vandals were originally Germanic.)

Experts like Valdes also point to paintings of her, including the one shown above, which is from the 1760s and attributed to abolitionist portraitist Allan Ramsay. “She did have mixed-race features, and Ramsay was a portraitist who reflected this accurately and didn’t make her look as if she was white,” says Robert Lacey, a historian and expert on the British Royal Family who has consulted on Netflix’s The Crown and who recently appeared on British streaming service Britbox’s WED Talks series. Such treatment was not a foregone conclusion: For example, Queen-consort Philippa of Hainault, who married King Edward III in 1328, was once described as “brown of skin all over,” but portraits show otherwise.

Read more: Why Historians Aren't Really Sure Whether Meghan Markle Will Be the First British Royal of Color

Summer Lee wins Democratic primary for Pennsylvania House of Representatives

Summer Lee of Swissvale Pennsylvania has won the Democratic primary as a newcomer to the 34th State House District in a wide victory against incumbent Paul Costa.

Lee is likely headed to Harrisburg next year; she will not face a Republican challenger in the general election in November. She will become one of the few African-American women in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

Summer Lee’s supporters have been vocal on Facebook and Twitter, using the hashtag #SummerIsComing, a play on HBO show Game of Thrones’ well-known slogan “Winter Is Coming.” The phrase is a vote of confidence for a candidate challenging a local political dynasty. And her supporters believe, like winter in Westeros, she’s a long-awaited phenomenon.

"This win means everything we've been trying to say: trust black women, elect black women," said Marita Garrett, the first black female mayor of Wilkinsburg and a Lee supporter. "By Summer shattering the glass and becoming the first black female representative from this area, it's just the beginning."

Read more: Progressive Summer Lee Defeats Incumbent Paul Costa In 34th State House District