The Glory Field

The Glory Field, published in 1994, is the story of an African-American family’s journey from slavery towards equality. It follows six young members of that family at different times in American history. The individual lives of these characters appear as six separate but interconnected stories within the novel, spanning the years from 1753 to 1994, and from Sierra Leone to Harlem.

The first story starts in 1753, when eleven-year-old Muhammad Bilal, the family’s documented member, is kidnapped by slave traders who attack his village in Sierra Leone. Muhammad is shackled and forced onto a slave ship. He struggles to survive the horrific journey to America, and many of his countrymen and fellow villagers die. The ship finally docks at Curry Island, off the South Carolina Coast, and Muhammad is taken to a plantation there. As an enslaved worker, Muhammad labors on the land that will eventually become the Glory Field.

The second story takes place on the Live Oaks plantation, Curry Island, South Carolina, in 1864. Lizzy Lewis, thirteenyearsold, has been born and raised on the plantation. Muhammad Bilal’s descendants have all been given the surname of the plantation master, Lewis.