Book Series: Enslaved, A Chronicle of Resistance

Enslaved, A Chronicle of Resistance is the first modern book series of its kind.

It is a chronicle of enslavement and resistance told in an exquisite blend of prose and poetic verse. Through the esthetic rhythms and rhymes of poetry, it chronicles the establishment and institutionalization of systemic racism. Each poem tells its own story, but each is also part of a bigger narrative. A story, within a story.

A prelude to each poem sets the context and moves the story along. Some of these preludes describe the historical, cultural, societal, political or economic environment as well.

Enslaved, is not just poetry about the atrocities of African slavery and the horrible price humanity continues to pay for it. Neither is it just a story of racism, bigotry, discrimination or prejudice. It is a story about dominion, power and control. It plunges the depths of depravity humanity can sink to and the things they are willing to do to justify it all. It is also a story of hope, courage and optimism as can only be told through poetry. It powerfully tackles the subjects of racism, Shadeism (the discrimination against an individual based on their skin tone), the use of racist symbols and systemic racism in a time when the world is caught up in debate as to what all of that really means. It shows the birth of systemic racism and challenges readers to address it in whatever color it rears its head.

Book 1 – The Lamentation of the Enslaved set between the 1700s to the mid-1800, examines the beginning of African enslavement and plunges into the pain and struggle of several enslaved Africans. This is the time of enslavement – the exercise of absolute power of one race of people over another. Where Blacks are bought, sold and owned as personal property and White people exert dominion over them and the fruits of their free labour.

Book 2 – Freedom Bells are Ringing set between the mid-1800s and 1900s is the book where, at first, hesitantly and cautiously the newly freed Enslaved, celebrate freedom only to realize that the ringing of the freedom bell was a hollow unfulfilled promise. In this book, we see the continuation of enslavement in other crueller ways. Slavery was perpetuated through the systems of segregation and Jim Crow. The book, celebrates the lives and struggles of stalwarts like Harriet Tubman, Robert Smalls, W.E.B Dubois, Frederick Douglass, Viola Desmond, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

Book 3 – Hidden in Plain Sight explores systemic racism in the modern day. It describes yet another evolution of enslavement. All the old accoutrements, language, symbols and memories of the past have been challenged and some have been rooted out and destroyed. However, one mechanism is left to dismantle – systemic racism. It is the specter of racism that is hidden in plain sight.

Book 4 – A Companion Reader is written as a companion to books 1 to 3 and allows the reader to read about the historical context without poetry. It references the poetry by book and according to chapter content.