Between the Lines

Homegoing

by Yaa Gyasi

Ghana, 18th century: two half-sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery.

Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.

Moderated by Hannah Wallace

Hannah Wallace is the Educational Programming Manager at The African American Museum in Philadelphia. She recently completed a two-year residency at The Colored Girls Museum as a research fellow with the Performing Identities Program for Black high school-aged women. She earned her B.A. in African American Studies from Temple University and an M.A. in Museum Education from The University of the Arts. Along with her museum work, Hannah is also a 5th-generation rug weaver. Her passion for ancestral memory and material culture stems from her family as well as her experience as an archival assistant to the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, the Lest We Forget Slavery Museum, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. A quote from Mary McLeod Bethune drives her work: "Knowledge is the prime need of the hour."