I’m always thinking of not just the 400th year, but really the 400-year period.Īnd then it dawned on me - what about marking this 400th year by bringing together a community of writers who would not only write the 400-year history of Black America, but also make history themselves? Such that 100 years from now, 200 years from now, when people reflect on the 400th year and what Black folks were thinking about that moment, as well as their own history, they could pick up this book?
I was thinking about, ‘What’s the best way to commemorate this 400th year?’ As a historian, I’m kind of biased. Kendi: I don’t think there was necessarily a moment as much as the coming awareness of the 400th year - the sort of symbolic birthday of Black America - and that date approaching. The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.ī: When did the idea for the book first evolve - was there a particular moment or event that sparked the idea for it? (The audiobook edition of “Four Hundred Souls” is reportedly getting a literal chorus of “extraordinary voices” with a cast of 87 narrators, including Leslie Odom Jr., Danai Gurira, and Phylicia Rashad.)ī spoke recently with Kendi, who moved to Boston last year to launch and direct the new BU Center for Antiracist Research, to learn more about the new work and what he hopes readers will take away from the new community history. “Collectively this choir sings the chords of survival, of struggle, of success, of death, of life, of joy, of racism, of antiracism, of creation, of destruction - of America’s clearest chords, year after year, of liberty, justice, and democracy for all,” Kendi wrote. With their strikingly different but unified voices, the writers form a “choir” in telling the community history, Kendi wrote in the introduction for “Four Hundred Souls.”
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