Black Livingstone: A True Tale of Adventure in the Nineteenth-Century Congo

Rating:
Summary: William Sheppard should be better known
Review: The life and work of William Sheppard should be better known. He was an African-American who escaped Jim Crow in the U.S. to become a missionary in Africa. He co-founded a Christian mission in Africa where they had been none before and for a time ran it single-handedly. He was also an amateur anthropologist/ethnologist and became the first foreigner to establish contact with the Kuba people of central Africa and to describe their culture to the outside world. On top of all that, he documented the cruelty of the King Leopold's Congo rule. Unfortunately, it is not clear that "Black Livingstone: A True Tale of Adventure in the Nineteenth-Century Congo" by Pagan Kennedy is up to the job of elevating William Sheppard to his rightful place in history. The book is well written, worth reading, and might be valuable to anyone interested in Africa, the Congo, or Christian missionaries, but a lot of the story is missing and is filled in with generalities from Sheppard's time. It may be the case that original documents concerning Sheppard's life are lost, and this is the best that can be done, or perhaps another book can do better. Four stars, but barely.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent, lively coverage
Review: This true-life story of a black adventurer in the 19th century Congo examines the adventures and discoveries of one William Sheppard, an Afro-American missionary who in 1890 sailed to the Belgian Congo and eventually became one of the most controversial human rights activists of his time. An excellent, lively coverage.