The Urban Griot

By Daryl Keith Middlebrook

In West Africa, the Griot (pronounced gre-o) was the village storyteller, poet, and historian. The Griot told tales of kings and commoners alike. It was his duty to be the voice of the people, the troubadour of truth, the one who kept the spirit of the long-gone elders alive once they had crossed over to the other side. The Urban Griot is a compilation of short stories, flash fiction and poems of African American peoples, not in the Motherland, but whose descendants were captured and taken to a land far away called America. It is here because of hundreds of years of slavery and oppression that our stories ceased to be told. However, slowly but surely new voices, new Griots began to arise. The Urban Griot tells tales of our people, unique to our situations, told with the voices of the streets in the language of our new homeland.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daryl Keith Middlebrook
• Release date: Apr 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311407993

Daryl Keith Middlebrook

Daryl Keith Middlebrook credits a vivid imagination as the reason he survived the treacherous streets of Detroit, Michigan. To escape the insanity that surrounded him, he often escaped into the pages of his first love, comic books. However, by his teenage years, he was very cognizant of the fact that none of these heroes looked like him, or lived in a neighborhood like the Motor City's predominantly black and poor east side. Dipping into that imagination, Daryl created and drew his own line of African-American superheroes to fill the void at least for him left by Marvel and DC.As an adult, Daryl's reading interest evolved from comics to stories of the African-American struggle. Authors such as Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Robert Beck and Donald Goines articulated the pain, anger, love and hope of America's black sub-culture in a way that Daryl could definitely identify.After serving in the military, Daryl relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a writing career. He graduated from the Los Angeles Film School, where he wrote and directed his thesis film, The Amazing Laylynn Thomas, which deals with a young girl with autism. Daryl also produced and wrote the documentary The Making of Falling Like Dominoes, showcasing the struggles indie filmmakers encounter raising money for projects.Looking to fine tune his writing, Daryl enrolled in Full Sail University, where he will earn a BFA in Creative Writing, with a focus on screenwriting. It was during his time at Full Sail that Daryl wrote his first novel, The Urban Griot.

Book preview

THE URBAN GRIOT

Copyright 2013 Daryl Middlebrook

Published by Daryl Middlebrook at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Dollar

Soul Shadow

Blasian Soul

Bad Moon Rising

Surveillance

50 Years of Black History From A-Z (Through My Eyes)

Black Top Respect

To Uplift the Race

Freedom Fighters

About the Author

Connect with Daryl Middlebrook

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank those who have believed in me, and inspired me even when I didn’t believe in myself. To my mother, Mildred Middlebrook, who instilled in me a sense of honor which helped me survive the streets of Detroit; Mama, I miss you, and thank you for being the mean Mom and keeping us kids from knowing the inside of a prison before we were twenty-one. To my daughter Desiree Middlebrook, who I love with all my heart and soul, thank you for making me laugh when I wanted to cry. Much love to Langston Pope and Nicole Pope, you’re more like my best friends then my step-kids. God bless you for always seeing me in a positive light. To my wife Dorothy Middlebrook, you are my soul mate, friend, buddy, lover and sister in Christ. I didn’t know it then, but God truly blessed me the day we first talked at the copy machine more than thirty years ago. I love you more than life itself. And finally to my Lord Jesus Christ, who brought me back from the brink of destruction. You are my hiding place and my strong tower. Thank you for life, and that more abundantly.

INTRODUCTION

In this nation of immigrants called the United States of America, there are only two groups of people who did not arrive here seeking the American dream. The first of course are the Native-Americans, who were erroneously christened Indians by a certain Italian explorer. The indigenous, original inhabitants of this land who were slaughtered and sweep into the hills by colonial fever. The second group was the African. Brought to this country in chains, robbed of their culture, religion, history and language, these men and women labored in hard slavery for nearly 250 years.

Unlike the Native Americans, who for centuries were called Indians, we have gone through a plethora of names since arriving in the New World. We have been called Negro, Colored, Black, Afro-American and African American. This identity crisis has not been due to schizophrenia, but a sincere and determined effort to understand who we are, where we came from, and where we are going as a people.