Saidiya's Journey Chapter Summaries
Saidiya’s journey starts in the Yale library, where, as a graduate student, she encountered a reference to her great-great-grandmother in a slave testimony from Alabama. She was filled with excitement at finding this, for it was a sign of her family’s past. It was then shortly interrupted by her great-great grandmother’s response when Saidiya asked her what she remembers about being once being a slave. She replied with, “Not a thing.” Hartman, while saddened to hear this, turns this negation into a possibility. Years later, Hartman began to work on this book. While doing research, she returned to interviews and could find no sign of the reference she remembered seeing years before.