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Prince Among Slaves
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Prince Among Slaves
Start your spring dialogue using
Prince Among Slaves
starting March 15th, 2008
Prince Among Slaves follows the true life story of Abdul-Rahman Ibrahima Sori, the prince of a large African Kingdom and Captain of his father’s armies who was captured in a battle in 1788 and sold into the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. After enduring the brutal Middle Passage, he eventually ended up in Mississippi at the birth of the U.S., where he remained enslaved for almost 40 years. Near providential circumstances finally led to his release, but not his freedom, nor the freedom of his large family. Defying the edict that he return immediately to Africa and still technically a slave, Abdul-Rahman set out on a quest to raise enough money to purchase his family’s freedom. Widely written about and sought after for public events, he became the most famous African in America, meeting with President John Quincy Adams and other leading luminaries of the day.
His quest came to a tragic end, as he was finally forced to leave before he could raise the needed money. He returned to Africa with only his wife, where he continued pressing for the release of his children. Only four months later, he died. Two of his sons were finally freed with the money he raised, but the others remained in bondage in America. Recently, his African and American descendents were reunited at a reunion on the grounds of the plantation where he was enslaved, finally fulfilling his dream.
Prince Among Slaves paints a vivid picture of the extraordinary times in which this remarkable man lived, interweaving the universal themes of bondage and deliverance, privation and perseverance, to tell a story of survival of the human spirit about a person who endured the humiliation of slavery without ever losing his dignity or his hope for freedom.
Key Advisors
Sulayman Nyang
- At Howard University, Dr. Nyang is a Professor of African Studies, heads the advisory board, and serves as an academic project liaison to the University. He has written extensively on Islamic, African and Middle Eastern affairs and is one of the foremost scholars in the field of Islam in America.
Kwame Anthony Appiah
- Dr. Appiah is currently a Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. He has taught at Duke, Columbia, and Harvard universities. He has written three novels, several books of cultural criticism, and is a leading scholar of African Philosophy and African-American life.
Terry Alford
- Dr. Alford wrote the ground-breaking and meticulously researched biography of Abdul Rahman that serves as a starting point for this film. He currently teaches in Annandale, Virginia. He has served as an advisor and content expert for the film.
Sylvianne Diouf
- Dr. Diouf is a renowned scholar of the African diaspora and the author of numerous books, including: Servants of Allah: African Muslim Slaves in the Americas, Growing Up in Slavery, Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America, Bittou’s Braids and others. She received a doctorate from the University of Paris and had careers has worked professionally in journalism, diplomacy, and academia. She is currently a Curator at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York.
For reviews, descriptions and more information on the film:
www.princeamongslaves.tv
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Unity Productions Foundation. All rights reserved.
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TenPearls