Community Corner
Local libraries kick off Muslim Journeys series with discussion on Prince Among Slaves
Dominican University’s Rebecca Crown Library, Oak Park Public Library and River Forest Public Library will present on Tuesday, November 12 the first in a series of collaborative programs exploring Muslim culture, art and history. The program, which will involve a discussion of the book and movie Prince Among Slaves, will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the River Forest Public Library, 735 Lathrop Avenue.
Prince Among Slaves, by Terry Alford, tells the remarkable story of Abd al Rahman Ibrahima, a Muslim prince from West Africa who was captured in Africa at the age of 26 and sold to a cotton and tobacco plantation owner in Natchez, Mississippi. He was recognized in 1807 by an Irish ship’s surgeon as the son of an African king who had saved the doctor’s life many years earlier. Through the doctor’s relentless efforts and the intercession of US Secretary of State Henry Clay, the prince was finally freed in 1828 after 40 years of slavery. At the age of 66, he sailed back to Africa but died of yellow fever five months after his arrival.
Made into a PBS movie in 2007, Prince Among Slaves is the story of a man who endured unfathomable humiliation without ever losing his dignity or his Muslim faith.
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Dr. Aly Drame, assistant professor of history at Dominican University, will lead this discussion. Drame, a native of Senegal, received his PhD in African history from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was an Andrew Mellon Sawyer Foundation Fellow at the University of Michigan where he pursued research on ethnicity in sub-Saharan Africa. He plays an active role in the African Muslim immigrant communities in Chicago.
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For more information on this free program, please contact Felice Maciejewski, University Librarian, Dominican University, at (708) 524-6873 or fmaciejewski@dom.edu.
This book discussion is part of the community-wide Bridging Cultures: Muslim Journeys program funded through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Subsequent programs will be presented throughout the year through March 2014. The next program will be presented on Tuesday, December 10 at 6:30 p.m. at the Oak Park Public Library and will revolve around the book, Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel.
