A witness to slavery is finally heard

In 1927, A MAN IN ALABAMA—THE LAST SURVIVOR of the last known ship ever to bring enslaved humans from Africa to the U.S.—received a visitor. A young anthropologist, working on her first big assignment, wanted to hear what he remembered of freedom, of bondage and of what came before. The aspiring scholar’s name was Zora Neale Hurston.

Hurston returned several times, aiming to write a book about the man—called Kossola, with a variety of spellings, or Cudjo Lewis—but never found an interested publisher. Even as she became an esteemed writer, his story stuck with her. His yearning for home, undimmed by time, was wedged in her mind. Now, about 90 years later, the book she had wanted, a nonfiction account of her interaction with a man who lived a vanishing history, has finally been released with great fanfare as Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo.”