[jacobystealshome]

That's pretty cool. I was a french literature major in college (and studied hatian literature in particular). I also took some african-american lit along the way. How'd you get into compiling a such a large book collection?

started with the autobiography of malcolm x. i started studying the history, and as it turns out, there were a lot of parallels between african-american history and irish history (im mostly irish). the first generational slaves in the "new world" were actually irish. about 20,000 irish were enslaved in the west indies, but we....dont do well with sun, and all of them died. so then, african slave trade.

but the 20th century is where the parallels get interesting. early part of the century, marcus garvey starts a nationalist organization (the largest AA org ever created, to this day). at the same time, the irish republican army is formed. in the fifties, both african-americans and the irish start their civil rights periods. indeed, murals of MLK and Malolm X could be found in Belfast.

Provos break away from the IRA in the late 60's, same time that the Black Panther Party for self-defense is created.

it goes way deeper than that, obviously, but i, as an irish-american, couldnt help but understand and relate somewhat the struggles that blacks had gone through in this country (and if you know a little about irish americans and african-americans, we ended up competing for the same jobs a lot of the time, and irish unions were busted by bring in blacks. there's always been tension there)

so that's the genesis....one book led to another book which led to another...i was starved for knowledge. actually had my own book on malcolm x written, but never published it. someone last year wrote a book exploring similar themes...and wrote it better

the post-colonial african stuff came later, when i was i college. had a couple really great profs in english - one introduced me to african lit, the other was a writing teacher. but i was geography major, with minors in history, psych and sociology...couldnt take anything more on

but dr price got me into all the great african writers: achebe, bessie head, fannon, kane, etc


okay, that was long-winded