The brevity of this book is in NO way an indication of how emotionally heavy it is. I remember back in January when they found the remains of a slave ship called The Clotilda and how they said it was the last ship to bring enslaved Africans to the United States.

To read within the first few pages of this book about that very same ship, and to hear it from the mouth of the last known enslaved African to be brought over to the U.S. aboard that same ship was chilling.

To read his account of his own life was so emotional. I cried many times. Slavery is already such an abomination, but to know that his own people sold him and countless other Africans into that nightmare is more than words can express.

If Kossula (and I will call him that not the name he took on for the sake of his master) survived the Middle Passage, slavery, the Civil War, and Jim Crow I know that I can live -- and need to-- live my life to the fullest no matter what may come my way.

This book is haunting and emotional. This book is one (of many) that is a must read if this country is going to reckon with the stain of slavery and the indelible print it has left on Americans of African descent.