The river where blood is born

by Sandra Jackson-Opoku

A delicate tapestry unfolds within these pages, a story stitched together with the threads of Ananse, the spider of African myth, and the wisdom of the ancestors. The River Where Blood Is Born takes us on a journey along the river of one family's history, from ancient Africa into today's America. It is through the lives of Mother Africa's many daughters that we understand the real meaning of roots: the captive Proud Mary, who has been savagely punished for refusing to relinquish her child to slavery; Earlene, who witnesses her father's murder at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan; Big Momma, a modern-day matriarch who can make a woman of a girl; proud and sassy Cinnamon Brown, whose wild abandon hides a bitter loss; smart, ambitious Alma, who is torn between the love of a man and the song of her soul. From its African origins, The River Where Blood Is Born carves a course across two centuries and three continents, from the eighteenth-century Gold Coast through the perilous Middle Passage, f