Homegoing

by Yaa Gyasi

Ness could remember reaching out for her mother, flailing her arms and kicking her legs, fighting against the body of the man who’d come to take her away. And still Esi’s lips had not moved, her hands had not reached out. She stood there, solid and strong, the same as Ness had always known her to be. And though Ness had met warm slaves on other plantations, black people who smiled and hugged and told nice stories, she would always miss the gray rock of her mother’s heart. She would always associate real love with a hardness of spirit.

“We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must always ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From