Many key issues are discussed in Black Livingstone, such as transportation, medicine and self-defense, among the people of Africa. Medicine was a large issue in Africa when William Sheppard was there. He experienced many deaths due to lack of medicine, for example deaths in the Kuba country. Self defense was a huge issue; many wars broke out due to territorial expansion by the British.
When Pagan Kennedy wrote this book she leaned more to the fiction side than the history side, but basically wrote in historical fiction. She relied heavily on historical sources using quotations from original sources. It seems “Kennedy has created William Henry Sheppard in her own image and likeness.” (category.org) Pagan Kennedy wrote this book to educate minds on William Sheppard because of the lack of knowledge on the subject of him.
In Black Livingstone it discusses the escapades of William Sheppard in the Congo. This book illustrates his life. He started as an insignificant person, then through hard work and some struggle became a sought after hero. Black Livingstone by Pagan Kennedy shows all aspects of his life, from missionary work to friendship, to love. William Sheppard was astonishing in Congo; he treated Congo culture like an equal to his own, and taught the history of the world from an African point of view. William Sheppard proved to be inferior and dared to be himself. Pagan Kennedy’s argument about William Sheppard suggested that he was a lost hero, an African American missionary who during the time when African Americans were being killed, proved to be virtuous and full of goals.
The argument put forth by Pagan Kennedy was correct. William Sheppard is not known a great deal. He is barely mentioned in World Culture or European History books. William Sheppard was a bold man to actually put his life on the line to go to Congo and help spread Christianity and to help in advancing politics. I believe this argument is not complete; she failed to mention if he was successful in his goal of teaching Christianity to the Africans there in the Congo. I considered this book to be biased, it only discussed the positive aspects of William Sheppard. Pagan Kennedy the author did fulfill her purpose of letting the world know about William Sheppard and his goals and purposes that he wanted to accomplish. I do like the way the book was written, every chapter told a story that William either contributed to or wrote.
This was a superior book, but it was more for the adult mind and at some points hard to understand. Teenagers reading this book would get bored quickly only because chapter after chapter was made up of zillions of detailed facts of what really went on in the Congo. They say William Sheppard astonished many with his stories of the Congo, so why isn’t this book told like he would tell his stories, but altogether I would say this book was very good with factual information on William Sheppard as a missionary.
