Motivation

What motivates a writer to tell the stories that they do? How did the author decide to write on a particular topic? Surely the answer varies from artist to artist.
As for myself, I admit to one motivation. The African slave trade. That ghastly period in history that I confess I find hard to read about.

One of the effects the slave trade has had on persons of African descent is that we face a problem not experienced by other people. No roots. If you have tried to fill out your family tree, you may have noticed that after a few generations, the tree stops. The branches are bare. The trade has severed the ties that connect Africans in the Diaspora to their pre-slavery history. Have you ever wondered what tribe your people came from? What language they spoke?

Genealogy is a popular pastime for a lot of people. In between writing, I try to find time to work on my family tree. The Internet has turned some folks into
genuine amateur genealogists. In the Bible, the part I’m sure a lot of people skip over is the genealogy - “the begats.” Like the patriarch Abram’s lineage, “Now
these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.” Look at Jesus’ bloodline: “And Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David.” The Old Testament is filled with such lengthy passages. For me, it reinforces the notion that your
descent, your lineage is important.

The cultural disconnection created by slavery motivates me to write what I do. When I write fiction, for example, I often include the tribe of my main character. While in reality it’s hard to determine whether or not that is really your ancestor listed on the 1850 Census, because it reads: male black, age 16. That could be anybody’s great-great-great Grandpappy. However, with fiction I can give my heroine an ancestry. If a character’s tribe is Yoruba. I can provide them with an ancestor who lived in ancient (Nubia) Cush, because the Yorubas migrated into West Africa from the middle Nile valley.

In my latest novel, “Revelations,” the main character is a young girl from the Fulani tribe. A tribe the late Sengalese historian, Cheikh Anta Diop traces back to
ancient Egypt. And yes, the storyline shows her ancestors in ancient times, as well as the setting in the mid-18th century in which she lives.

In truth, I suppose it’s fair to say that I’m motivated by a desire to reconstruct African history. Writing stories that take place in the past, before the slave trade, and connecting them to the present is my way of working on not just my genealogy, but all African peoples; especially those who lost their “begats.”