I am enormously grateful for the kindness of so many individuals. My husband, Jay, and our son, “Little Jay,” have been an unwavering source of love and support. I am also grateful for the other members of my family, especially my mom for her invaluable help and understanding. Many thanks to Ibram for being a wonderful friend and collaborator, and thank you to our amazing editor, Chris, for carefully guiding this project—and enthusiastically supporting our vision. I am grateful to the brilliant writers who entrusted us with their work. Last, but not least, thank you to the research assistants who helped us with this project. I owe a debt of gratitude to Adam, Richard, and Tiana.
—Keisha N. Blain, October 2020
I want to first and foremost acknowledge and thank Keisha Blain. When I embarked on this editorial project, I knew I could not do it alone. I knew I should not do it alone. And I’m so glad we came together to co-edit this historic tome. You made the enormity of this project seem manageable. Your exceptional expertise, experience, determination, and insight have been invaluable to everyone involved in putting together Four Hundred Souls. I’m thankful we walked this long and winding editorial process together.
This has been a grueling, thrilling, and rewarding process, working closely with Professor Blain to make history and compose history by bringing together ninety Black writers. I want to thank each and every writer and poet for taking some time out of their busy schedules to contribute a piece. Not just any kind of piece. Moving and informative and relevant pieces and poems that were almost meant to be together. I don’t see this as my book, or Professor Blain’s book, or our book, but your book. The community’s book. The book of the community of writers, and the deceased and living community we are writing for. I want to thank you for sharing with the world and with history a sense of this community.
I must thank the incomparable literary agent who loved this book on first sight of the idea. Thank you, Ayesha Pande, for instantly seeing our vision for this book, for paving the way for the dream to once again become a beautiful reality that stands time’s test.
And we knew it would take a special editor to seamlessly edit fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—to fuse so many distinctive writing voices into one voice and many voices simultaneously. Editing a single writer is hardly easy. Try editing ninety writers and two editors for a single volume. Try editing a sweeping history of four hundred years. I don’t know how Chris Jackson pulled it off, but for history’s sake, I’m so glad that he did. Thank you, as always, Chris, for your greatness as an editor.
To the entire team at One World, especially Maria Braeckel, Nicole Counts, Stacey Stein, and Ayelet Gruenspecht, you know I’m forever grateful for your wisdom, your grace, your hard work, your determination to ensure every human being is reading this history, this community history.
To my partner, Sadiqa, and my daughter, Imani, thank you for being the rock and north star and loves of my existence. To my parents, Larry and Carol, and second parents, Nyota and B.T.; to my brother, Akil, and second brother, Macharia—thank you for your love. To all my family and friends, I learn love from you each day, and I strive to love you each day—as I do the Black community, as I do the American community, as I do the human community.
When we were putting the finishing touches on this book in the spring and summer of 2020, the human community, the American community, and especially the Black American community were facing one of the deadliest pandemics humanity has ever known. Between 9 April 2020, when states started releasing racial demographic data of coronavirus patients, and October, Black people have consistently died at more than twice the rate of white people from COVID-19. I want to acknowledge the already forty thousand Black lives lost, many of whom would still be with us if not for racism. You will never be forgotten. Your souls will always be cherished. This book is dedicated to you.
—Ibram X. Kendi, October 2020