Theme song: Set Me Free by Tarika
Tonight, my husband convinced me to attend a booksigning and documentary premiere for the movie “A Prince Among Slaves“. It was a really good short film about a muslim Prince who ended up as a slave in Mississippi. Abdul Rahman Ibrahima was an educated muslim prince from Timbuctoo who was ambushed by on the way home from a battle. His enemies ended up selling him to white slave traders which is how he ended up on American soil.
At the end of the film Ibrahima’s descendent from Liberia had a family reunion with Ibrahima’s descendent from here in the United States. Everyone, from the smallest to the oldest was calling out their ancestral names.
One of the presenters tonight made the statement that at the beginning of slavery there were more muslims living in America than there are today. She said a lot of the slaves that were here were orignally muslims and many of them held onto their tradition and passed them on. She even played a song that showed how arabic music has influenced black music. The first song she played was of a male arabic singer, singing the high notes that dive around. Then she played a song by an old blues singer. I never noticed before how similar in intonations and vocal acrobatics blues were to that arabic/indian sound.
But Ibrahim worked tirelessly to free his children once he became freed. And when he saw it was time to leave he went to back to Africa. They said that a caravan of gold was coming to meet him in Monrovia until they got word that he had passed away.
He’s an interesting man. I guess that’s another book to add to my reading list for the summer.
So now, I am back on track. Well, I’ve always been, I just need to make trips. I can’t do anything until I can go see relatives on my mother’s side to see if there’s information that I need. And for my father’s family I need to send away for death certificates –yeah, kinda morbid.
But that is where I stand now 
