"One person in particular sealed the deal for me. Genders and sexualities beyond heterosexual or cisgender were present and integrated in those societies, Jones said, even though they didn't use the language that describes those identities today. He found that European colonization and Christian missionary work imposed homophobia and gender binaries onto indigenous populations in Africa.
A New York City native who majored in creative writing and minored in Africana studies at Brooklyn College, Jones, who is Black and gay, researched precolonial African societies, including their oral histories, to understand how Africans thought about gender and sexuality. Their love is considered "sinful" and a liability encouraging even more brutality from an angry master who craves newborns as capital.įor more than a decade, Jones has been known for having created the online social justice community Son of Baldwin, which engages issues from Black LGBTQ+ perspectives. But when another enslaved man tries to curry favor with the master and gets his permission to use Christianity and the Bible to wield control and influence over the others, Samuel and Isaiah become targets. Their bond also resists the forced procreation - sexual violence - imposed on the enslaved as a "business" investment for future labor.Īmong the other enslaved people, "the two of them" are an open secret, and the relationship is generally accepted Samuel and Isaiah are held in positive regard. Samuel and Isaiah carve out a relatively safe space between each other, even as they live through the horrific violence and degradation wrought by a white slave owner and his arbiters. Jones' offering, an instant New York Times bestseller, centers on Samuel and Isaiah, two enslaved Black teenagers who fall in love on a Mississippi plantation.
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