Justin

In the spring of the year 2000, Justin rode thirty-five miles in a school bus down Interstate 79 with his eighth grade class to the Cultural Center in Charleston to see the exhibition of artifacts recovered from The Henrietta Marie, an English Merchant-slaver that wrecked off the coast of Florida in the 1700's. Justin was a native West Virginian, born in a rural county, in the middle of the state. He liked to fish the Elk River for muskie, and could ride his mountain bike down the country roads for hours without tiring. He helped the neighboring farmers put up hay in the summer months. Justin had not traveled far, but he boasted of visiting the neighboring states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland. Once, his family took a three-day vacation in the seaside town of Dewey, Delaware. That was the first and only time he had been to the ocean. He loved the shore and rode the waves with a boogie board for hours. A few years earlier, Justin had gone on an outing with his Great-uncle Bart and listened to a group of older men telling jokes around a campfire. He had not understood the jokes, but had laughed along with the men as part of the camaraderie. A few weeks later, Justin's family was watching the six o'clock television news program. Reverend Jesse Jackson was pictured with three young Americans returning to the United States. The young men had been held hostage in Beirut, and Reverend Jackson had assisted through negotiations with the captors in bringing the men home. The news program moved Justin's mother to tears. Justin looked at his mother, perplexed. "Mom," he said, "I thought that Jesse Jackson was a race horse that ran in the Kentucky Derby." Justin's mother immediately understood what had occurred and that Justin had heard and not understood racist jokes and their inherent cruelty. She explained Reverend Jackson's courageous role in the freeing of the hostages. That evening she read Alice Walker's children's book, The Green Stone, to show him the beauty of diversity. Justin looked at the beautiful pictures in the book of many people with varying shades of skin tone, eye color, and hair color. "We are really all one human family," his mother reinforced. Upon entering The Henrietta Marie display area of the Cultural Center, Justin heard steady drumming. He passed through the first exhibit. His eyes went from Daniel Boone's gun, mounted on the wall, to arrowheads from the native people, who had populated West Virginia long ago. Justin was proud of his heritage. His genealogy could be traced for many generations in West Virginia and directly back to Scotland. He felt connected to the pioneer spirit of Daniel Boone and had heard hints of a great-great grandmother, who was a full-blooded Cherokee. The steady drumming called to him. He followed the labyrinth of exhibits until he came to a sign, "A Slave Ship Speaks: The Wreck of The Henrietta Marie Several Afro-American youths were skillfully playing authentic African drums. The presence of these boys was a novelty as the county in which Justin lived had few people with dark skin. Justin kept his head low and avoided eye contact with the drummers. He walked on and passed by the half-scale model of The Henrietta Marie and glanced at the size. The ship was much smaller than he had expected. He wondered how the crew and the slaves fit in such a small vessel. The bell was displayed, bearing the name of the ship. Shackles with bolts and loops were encased in glass. Thick chains hung from the walls. None of this seemed real to Justin. The drumming stopped. One of the younger drummers ran past Justin and hid under a table displaying pewter kitchenware from the ship's artifacts. The young boy held his finger to his lips in the universal gesture requesting quiet. Soon an older boy with plaited hair and a bright yellow shirt walked rapidly down the corridors, obviously looking for his friend, in a spontaneous game of hide-and-go-seek. A guard in a navy blue uniform with a white insignia on his chest pocket and a very straight back had heard the commotion of stomping feet and headed in their direction. Justin stood quietly in front of the table shielding the view of the young boy crouched in hiding as

the guard walked by and onward to the reconstructed model of the ship. He stood there with a stern, wordless expression. The older boy in the yellow shirt winked at Justin and started drumming again. Soon his friend slipped out from under the table and joined him. The museum sounded like Africa again. Slowly Justin walked through the circle of artifacts and came back to where the boys were drumming. He had played the drums in his seventh grade band. The African drum intrigued him. The older boy smiled broadly and asked him if he would like to try to play it. Justin nodded and the boy moved from his stool. Justin sat down, imitating the earlier sounds. "You are a natural," said the tall boy. Justin thanked him and looked at the display of books about African culture and the slave trade in the Americas. One book was about the Underground Railroad and showed pictures of quilts, displayed on windowsills. The younger drummer explained that Quakers had used specially-made quilts as direction guides for escaped salves for the Underground Railroad. Justin was fascinated. His grandmother made a quilt every winter. His own bed was covered with a log cabin design of warm brown patches. "Imagine using a quilt as a map to freedom," he thought. On the wall hung various wooden African masks and below them stood many intricately carved walking canes, one was of two snakes intertwined. Justin touched the carved walking canes and gazed in wonderment at the rich tapestries of brilliantly colored woven cloth that were draped over the display tables and the beaded jewelry of different colors that was for sale. The young drummers explained that their Uncle Ronnie had just returned from Ghana and had brought back the African items. Sale of the goods would go toward promotion of the display of The Henrietta Marie throughout the world. An organization called All-Aid International, Inc., was supporting the exhibition as a way of promoting racial harmony. Justin listened and decided to buy a beaded bracelet for his sister. He chose one with bright green and yellow beads. The boy with the yellow shirt asked Justin if he played sports. It turned out that both boys were basketball players. Justin asked his name. Monteir Boggess. Soon there was an exchange of email addies and Instant Message addresses. The younger boy was Monteir's half-brother. Both boys lived in Charleston and were involved in a drumming club, created to teach ancient African rhythms. Justin admitted aloud that the boys certainly looked like Africans with their dark skin and brightly colored shirts. Meeting them was the highlight of his visit to the Cultural Center, and he hoped he would see them again. Justin knew that his studies about the history of slavery were not over. Mrs. Snodgrass, his social studies teacher, had assigned a research paper to enhance the learning from the field trip. The class had randomly pulled little slips of paper out of a hat to obtain their assignments. Justin had been assigned the task of researching one of the earliest abolitionists in America. He could not remember the name of this abolitionist and was glad that he had access to the Internet at home. But first things, first. He was getting hungry and was thinking of the milkshake he would be drinking in the next few minutes when the bus stopped at the McDonald's at Elkview on the way back to the middle school. Justin ate and reboarded the bus. A belly full of hamburger, fries, and an apple pie and the droning rumble of the bus down the highway made Justin sleepy. His peers, usually excitable, seemed equally subdued and quiet. Justin laid his head against the bus window and closed is eyes. Soon he was traveling, bumping along with the waves. He looked around and realized that he was in the hold of a wooden ship. The air was close and rank-smelling. He looked down at his feet and saw that he was in shackles, like the ones he had seen in the museum. He felt claustrophobic, like when his cousins had locked him in an attic when he was very young. He yelled aloud. The other "kids" in the bus looked at him. "Are you okay?" someone asked. Justin realized that he had fallen asleep and dreamed. What had he dreamed? All he could

remember was the feeling of being in a small space and not being able to move. The space was dark and smelly and crowded with people. He could hear the sound of ocean waves. The raucous cry of a sea gull filled the air. The dream left him upset and disoriented.