On today’s show, host Dana Pellebon discusses the history of maroonage in the Black diaspora with Amari Johnson, author of the new book, Under a Black Star: The Maroon Impulse in New Orleans. 

Maroons were enslaved Africans in the Americas who escaped the plantation system to make their own way. Johnson was inspired by the maroon communities of Jamaica and Brazil but also wanted to understand what happened to the “maroon impulse” after chattel slavery ended. He found contemporary resonances in the Algiers parish of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. 

Johnson moved to New Orleans in 2009, just 5 years after Katrina destroyed 118 of the city’s 126 public schools. Those public schools were notoriously replaced by charter schools. In response, he and a few colleagues founded the Black Star Cafe, which economically supported a homeschool collective in Algiers. At the cafe, folks debated ideas, held fairs, and educated children in culturally sensitive ways. Algiers is a community with a long history of maroonage. There, on the fringes of the plantation system, the maroons built a community for their families over miles of often watery terrain. 

Amari Johnson is an independent scholar, musician, and filmmaker based in Philadelphia.

Featured image of the cover of Under a Black Star.

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