Sixteen-year-old Malcolm hasn’t been okay for a while. He’s angry and despondent, and no good seems to happen for Black teens like him in D.C. To make matters worse, he must spend the summer at his late father’s family farm in Mississippi.

A few days after his arrival, his great-aunt confesses that the State is forcefully acquiring the farm to widen a highway. It’s not news Malcolm is concerned about, but someone plans to make it his concern—a ghostly ancestor named Cedric.

Malcolm’s not sure how it happens, but one minute he’s in the farmhouse attic, and the next he’s in the body of Cedric during Reconstruction in the 1870s. It’s here where his education begins.

As Cedric, Malcolm experiences becoming a legislative aide and meets real-life Black statesmen as well as white allies who stood by their side. Even after witnessing these events, Malcolm’s faith in his future remains shaky, particularly since he knows that the gains the statesmen made were almost immediately stripped away. If those great men couldn’t completely succeed, why should he try?

But Cedric isn’t through with Malcolm yet, and other teachers are in his midst: his uncle just home from prison, a sweet girl next door, a white kid Malcolm thinks is no good, and his great-aunt and uncle. Will Malcolm find the courage to save the farm and take an active role for Black progress? Or will he resign himself to resentments and defeat? Thankfully, his teachers are cheering him on.

PURCHASE

inspiration

Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church

“Black Was the Ink” was inspired by the Mother Emanuel massacre that took place in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17, 2015. At the time of the massacre, I was on maternity leave, and I struggled with how to prepare my son to enter a world filled with so much inexplicable hate towards people that look like him. I was surprised to learn that Denmark Vesey, the leader of one of the largest attempted slave rebellions, founded the congregation that became the Mother Emanuel Church, and Pastor Richard ‘Daddy’ Cain, one of the first Black members of Congress, led the church during Reconstruction. At that moment, the link between slavery, the collapse of Reconstruction, and the modern state built on a legacy of white supremacy crystallized for me. I knew I had to find a way to tell this story in a way that my boys, as well as other Americans frustrated by modern-day racial tensions, could understand. I am now the mother of four African American boys, and following years of racial justice protests, this story is no less urgent.