a bone infection and severe inflammation of the shins. Her left arm appeared to be laid across her torso, and her cranium, now missing the face, pointed to the right side of the coffin. Her upper central incisors were shaved, possibly according to a West African cultural tradition, and represent the earliest documented case of such dental modification in North America.
The person in Burial 7 was a child between the ages of seven and twelve, of unknown sex, whose remains were damaged by heavy rain and a redirected sewer line that flooded the graveshaft during excavation. Decades of a sewer pipe lying across the child’s midsection also contributed to this poor state, despite the fact that the coffin was found to be in relatively good condition. Directly beneath that body were the remains of a male person between twenty-one and forty years of age in Burial 12 whose bones were very soft due also to the high water table of the soil. At present, it is impossible to tell if these two people were buried at the same time or possibly even generations apart. The coffinless remains of persons in Burials 2B, 3B, 4B, 5B, and 7B were discovered beneath the sidewalk. Dental fragments and hand bones from a person not presently attributed to Burial 2 but found nearby are all that exists of the person in Burial 2B. Twelve teeth represent the person in Burial 3B. One tooth each indicates persons in Burials 4B and 5B, and a femur shaft fragment resting atop the child’s coffin in Burial 7 is all that was found of the person in Burial 7B.
The boundaries of Portsmouth’s African Burying Ground are still a mystery, as they have been for more than one hundred years, but plans to build a formal memorial are underway. Public discussions led by the state’s archaeologists have asked city residents to consider whether a part of either street should be closed to vehicular traffic. Some Portsmouth residents have submitted samples of their DNA to see if they are in any way related to those people whose remains, now stored in Ethafoam, 0.002 mil polybags, and acid-free archival storage boxes in a municipally provided laboratory space, await reinterment.
Because I worried that I would lose track of the archaeologists’ report amongst the bills, magazines, and student papers that littered my desk, for many months I kept it beside my bed, on the floor beneath my nightstand. Each morning the radio woke me with news of the war, a pop star’s addiction, dismal predictions for the American economy. Later, I put the report in my backpack, its pages flat against my spine. At some point, I am not sure when, I grew accustomed to its weight and stopped noticing I was carrying it around.
IN 2005 MORE THAN a million black people lived in Chicago, Illinois, making it a good place to win friends and stop being a stranger.
Other predominantly black cities like St. Louis, Missouri, and Detroit, Michigan, experienced frequent sightings of UFOs.
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Listening to music underwater affects one’s hearing in curious ways. No visible change can be seen in the shape of the eardrum, but many report being able to hear whispers from people they have never met for days after coming to the surface. Investigations into this phenomenon have been labeled crackpot science and hoodoo though amongst astrologers and criminologists interest grows.
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| CALLER: | My name is Mimi, and I would like to dedicate a song for my dad. |
| DJ: | Go ahead. |
| CALLER: | Just start talking? |
| DJ: | Just start talking. |
| CALLER: | His name is Earl. The last time I saw him he was working as an electrician for Delta Airlines at O’Hare in 1995. |
| Dad, you can come home now, and please don’t worry too much about the past. This song has no words because I don’t want to make any more promises. | |
| I still love you. |
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Geography and racial inequality work against even the most nutritionally conscious moms.
A study of 266 black women in Detroit found that those who shopped in supermarkets ate more servings of fruits and vegetables per day than those who shopped at independent neighborhood grocery stores.
One area of Detroit that was 97% African American had no chain supermarkets and twelve independent grocery stores.
A nearby mixed-race area had ten independent groceries and seven chain supermarkets.
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New data about the connections between nutrition and violence is changing the way people think about prison. Oxford University scientist Bernard Gesch tracked 231 maximum-security inmates for twelve months, recording violent or antisocial incidents. He gave one group a vitamin supplement, while a control group got a placebo. Over the next several months he saw a 35% drop in fighting amongst the group receiving vitamin supplements.1
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| CALLER: | I would like you to play a song for my fiancé. I don’t know which one, can you pick it? |
| DJ: | Sure thing. Hey, how did he propose? |
| CALLER: | It was pretty plain. |
| DJ: | Oh yeah? What did he do? |
| CALLER: | He said, I want you to be my wife. Do you want to be my wife? |
| DJ: | That doesn’t sound plain to me. When are you getting married? |
| CALLER: | We don’t know. He’s overseas right now. |
| DJ: | Fighting? |
| CALLER: | Yeah. |
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Rather than suffer the indignities of slavery, hundreds of thousands of Africans chose to drown while crossing the Atlantic. Some DJs claim no one drowned at all and those who leapt from deck landed below the ocean on a subcontinent called Drexciya.2
It can be hard to get a message through when people are underwater.
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Police officer Martin Farr described the evacuation of a Chicago public high school after the storm passed:
A woman, she was about the age of my mother, maybe fifty years or so, was standing at a podium in front of a large classroom. She spoke to her students in a stern tone of voice about personal responsibility. When I turned around to note their reaction, I realized the back half of the building had been blown away by the storm. Torn strips of corrugated steel hung over a gaping hole in which oily, brown water was rushing in. Soon it was up to our chests. The teacher seemed unmoved by the flood, but she was overcome with disappointment in her students’ inability to call out their presence at attendance.
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A glowing red object flew over a residential area of New Haven, Connecticut, in November 1953, causing lights on both sides of the object’s path to dim and then come back on when it went out of sight. This signified the beginning of an increase in New Haven’s black population.
In 1950, African Americans comprised only 12.25% of New Haven’s population. By 2000, New Haven was 43.5% White and 37.4% African American.3
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A plane filled with prisoners being transported to a federal facility in Wyoming took off from Chicago’s O’Hare airport in April. Ascending into low clouds over Lake Michigan, it disappeared from radar. The plane showed up several hours later near the Florida Keys, heading toward a tropical storm gathering force off the western coast of Cuba. For about thirty minutes Miami controllers tried to reestablish radio contact. When the plane vanished for the final time, all the controllers involved in the search fell asleep and were unable to be wakened for one hour.
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| DJ: | Who am I talking to? |
| CALLER: | This
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