Rating: 
Summary: Southern History Discovered
Review: Alan Huffman has pieced together an amazing true pre-Civil War story of the freeing of hundreds of former slaves and their passage from Mississippi to Africa, all carried out pursuant to the dying wishes of a plantation owner after years of politicized legal wrangling. Mr. Huffman's journey in tracing the current descendants of the former enslaved to current day Liberia then reminds us of how the past and the present always come together, and of the eternal struggles found in the innateness--good and bad--of human nature.
Rating: 
Summary: Forgotten History --- Why It Matters!
Review: Alan Huffman's book on the history of a group of freed slaves, their journey back to Africa and the modern story of Liberia is important and very interesting. Huffman gives us (1) a view of life and history that formed our society and culture in Mississippi, (2) provides an overview of Liberia's history and our connection to it (a chapter of US history that is seldom mentioned ... I never heard of Liberia and the US role in its founding before arriving in West Africa in 1978), and (3) shows that Faulkner was right in saying that the past continues to impact us.
In 1978 I went to Guinea Bissau,West Africa, to work on a USAID (foreign aid) program in the country's rice growing region. It was there that I heard, for the first time, of a group of freed slaves returning to Africa and establishing a country, Liberia, in 1821 with it's capital named after the fifth US president James Monroe. By 1838, 20,000 American blacks (ex-slaves and freed men --- including the slave group from Jefferson County that was the subject of his research) made up the population of the Colonization Society and Liberia. Today the descendants of these settlers make up about 5 percent of Liberia's population. This elite group dominated the political and economic sectors for more that 150 years. A backlash against this group in 1980 by descendants of local tribesmen caused the chaos that grips modern day Liberia. It's important to me and you today because of the potential links that states in chaos have to terrorist groups (Huffman talks of the potential laundering of Al Queda money through diamond sales in Liberia and the attempt to use the country as a conduit for the purchase of illegal arms --- including stinger missles).
Huffman brings the reader full circle and gives interesting details of his research and the people he meets along the way. He also provides details on our Mississippi history about slave and slaveholder interaction and the cultural values it imprinted on our society. I also liked the tidbits of history like the origin of Alcorn State University (evolving from a school for the sons of plantation owners to the first land grant college in the United States). This is a good book that I highly recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Truth is stranger than fiction.
Review: For me the tale of slavery in the two Mississippis was almost too macabre to fathom. The concept that people-like-me owned people-like-you was too painful to think about, much less discuss.This account of the dark side of our history brings to light a fresh perspective. I now better recognize today's Mississippi in America as a land of "milk and honey" by much of the world's standard. This book helped me internalize how difficult mere survival can be. Mississippi in Africa raised my level of gratitude to live in Mississippi in America today.
Rating:
Summary: Truth is stranger than fiction.
Review: For me the tale of slavery in the two Mississippis was almost too macabre to fathom. The concept that people-like-me owned people-like-you was too painful to think about, much less discuss. This account of the dark side of our history brings to light a fresh perspective. I now better recognize today's Mississippi in America as a land of "milk and honey" by much of the world's standard. This book helped me internalize how difficult mere survival can be. Mississippi in Africa raised my level of gratitude to live in Mississippi in America today.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to put down
Review: Great example of true, hard-to-find storytelling. Very compelling. For those who love history combined with modern-day issues this is the book to read. Easy to see that a great deal of research went into telling the story of a group of Mississippi slaves and what became of them and their descendants over the course of a century and a half. Takes you back in time -- down a road of intrigue, sadness and hope for the future. Huffman does a nice job.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written
Review: Having recently met a family of Liberian refugees, I wanted to learn more about the country. I really went in search of LIBERIA:PORTRAIT OF A FAILED STATE but came upon MISSISSIPPI IN AFRICA instead and am so glad I did. It is complex and bittersweet, offering no easy blame or solutions.
Rating:
Summary: A Compelling Narrative
Review: Huffman spins a compelling narrative about the West African country whose destiny, for better or for worse, has been intertwined with its "stepchild-like" relationship with the United States. The book is well written and a page turner. My only critique is that by focusing on one particular group of individuals, Huffman necessarily sacrifices the proverbial forest for a very impressive tree. This book would best be read by the non-specialist who has first taken a look through a good political history of Liberia like the ones written by Professors Sawyer (THE EMERGENCE OF AUTOCRACY IN LIBERIA, Institute for Contemporary Studies), Ellis (THE MASK OF ANARCHY, New York University Press), or Pham (LIBERIA: PORTRAIT OF A FAILED STATE, Reed Press).
Rating:
Summary: A Compelling Narrative
Review: Huffman spins a compelling narrative about the West African country whose destiny, for better or for worse, has been intertwined with its "stepchild-like" relationship with the United States. The book is well written and a page turner. My only critique is that by focusing on one particular group of individuals, Huffman necessarily sacrifices the proverbial forest for a very impressive tree. This book would best be read by the non-specialist who has first taken a look through a good political history of Liberia like the ones written by Professors Sawyer (THE EMERGENCE OF AUTOCRACY IN LIBERIA, Institute for Contemporary Studies), Ellis (THE MASK OF ANARCHY, New York University Press), or Pham (LIBERIA: PORTRAIT OF A FAILED STATE, Reed Press).
Rating:
Summary: Into Africa
Review: Mississippi in Africa (the very title poses massive intrigue: are those two names not antithesized in your mind?) is a work of such intricate tracery, so immediate to the author's very home (as in house), yet in terms of cause and effect the stuff of epic saga. The reader is taken into the neglected storage bins of modern America's poorest state, is present at the discovery of extremely fragile antebellum threads, some of them silk, some cotton --and with the author, follows them into a distant land still writhing in the aftermath of its controversal birth. Liberia is currently hot on the evening news. Only after accompanying Alan Huffman to that country, do I have an inking as to why: one must travel from Mississippi TO Africa to fathom how there could possibly exist a place called Mississippi IN Africa.
I would recommend this book to anyone who thinks they went to Mr. DeLeo's fifth period history class.
Rating:
Summary: A story that needed telling
Review: Most folks don't realize the transition that has taken place in the deep South in the past 3 decades. The change from a fully segregated society to one, if not completely integrated, where the races are on an equal footing has not been easy for either race. One of the missing components in this integration is a common history beyond master and slave. "Mississippi in Africa" is an important piece of this "lost history." In communities where they are demographically capable, African Americans have obtained almost complete political control. Although not necessarily popular or completely successful, the political transition has been relatively peaceful. Not so in Liberia. The tragedy of Mississippi in Africa magnifies the successes of Mississippi in America. There is plenty in this book for all races to ponder on.
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