The Black Male as Ancestor in John Edgar Wideman’s The Homewood Trilogy

Abstract

This essay focuses on John Edgar Wideman’s representation of the black male’s role as ancestor in his Damballah . It investigates why black male ancestry is traditionally not well-established, and how Wideman recreates such ancestry to empower the current generations of young black males. In The Homewood Trilogy Wideman creates ancestral figures to establish connections with the past, reclaim a forgotten history, and better understand the contemporary black male crisis.