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. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span. 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

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. 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. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. In Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African Americans, 1619-2019, 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.

Heather McGhee – Bacon’s Rebellion, 1674-1679.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor – Property, 1969-1974.

Four Hundred Souls by Ibram X. Kendi