19. #diversespines | Day 1 Book Quotes ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ “Life, inexhaustible, goes on. And we do too. Carrying our wounds and our medicines as we go. Ours is an amazing, a spectacular, journey in the Americas. It is so remarkable one can only be thankful for it, bizarre as that may sound. Perhaps our planet is for learning to appreciate the extraordinary wonder of life that surrounds even our suffering, and to say Yes, if through the thickest of tears.” ― Zora Neale Hurston, Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 🍷🍷🍷🍷 out 5 Cheers! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ My reading experience was enhanced because I listened to the audiobook simultaneously as I read Barracoon. It took me a while to fall in step with the dialect but as I look back that’s the most beautiful part of this book. I found myself frustrated that the interview content was minuscule in comparison to the long introduction & appendices. But I paused, took a step back, removed what was annoying me from my thoughts and focused my energy on the sheer wonder of what I was reading! The impact of reading an Zora Neale Hurston’s interview with Cudjo Lewis; or Kossula — his original name, the last survivor of the last slave ship to land on American shores escapes my comprehension. What a time to be alive to bear witness to her words and his story in his own words 87 years later!! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Zora sums it up best when she states “All these words from the seller, but not one word from the sold. The Kings and Captains whose words moved ships. But not one word from the cargo. The thoughts of the “black ivory,” the “coin of Africa,” had no market value. Africa’s ambassadors to the New World have come and worked and died, and left their spoor, but no recorded thought.” 📚🍑📸 Perfect book to kick off the Diverse Spines Photo Challenge & to honor Juneteenth! . . . . . #spinesvines #books #wine #photochallenge #bookquotes #baracoon #zoranealehurston #summer #womenauthorsofcolor #diversity #diversityinreading #juneteenth #day1 #bookstagram #bookblogger #bookworm #booknerd #bookgeek #bookstagramfeature #bookreview #unitedbookstagram














