MLK Cultural Center - Recommended Reading

Born the prince of Dukandarra, Guinea, Broteer Furro was captured by slave traders at age six. As Broteer stepped off the African continent and onto a cargo ship bound for Rhode Island, the vessel's steward purchased the boy and gave him a new name: Venture.

The young man crossed the Atlantic Ocean, landed in Narragansett, and worked through three decades of slavery to buy not only his own freedom but also the freedom of his wife and children. Remarkable in his own time for his ambition and physical stature, Venture Smith would become known to history as the first man to document both his capture from Africa and life as an American slave.

On each spread of this breathtaking volume, poems by acclaimed poet Marilyn Nelson sit opposite the the text of Venture Smith's own narrative. Ms. Nelson's controlled verse layers this edition with insight into Smith's stoic eighteenth-century prose. Deborah Dancy's start watercolor collages highlight the tension between the the economical language of the narrative and the turbulent emotions within the poems.
-- Inside Front Cover Flap