January 28, 2005
Escaped Sudanese Slave Keynotes Black History Month at MHC
 Francis Bok, a former
Sudanese slave who survived ten years in bondage before his escape
to the United States, will tell his story on February 2, 2005,
at 7 pm in Gamble Auditorium at Mount Holyoke College.
Bok's speech will
be the keynote address for Mount Holyoke's celebration of Black
History Month, organized and sponsored by the Black History
Month
Committee. (A complete list of the month's scheduled events can
be found here.) He will relate details from his life as a slave,
which he recorded
in his acclaimed autobiography, Escape from Slavery. He will
also
speak out against modern-day slavery. A book signing will follow
Bok's talk.
"Francis Bok's story
shoots an arrow into the listener's heart, penetrating the reality
of modern slavery as well as the reality of hope," said Isabelle
Darling, coordinator of multicultural affairs and associate dean.
"His words force us to realize our responsibility and our ability
to make a change. It has been of great importance for the Black
History Month Committee to initiate conversation among our community.
"The theme of this
year's Black History Month celebrations at MHC, 'Let's Start Talking
among Friends,' evokes Dr. Martin Luther King's quotation, 'In
the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the
silence of our friends,' " Darling said. "Francis Bok has overcome
years of silence. The Black History Month Committee hopes that
members of the MHC community will support his voice and embrace
their own."
In spite of its place
in American history, slavery neither began nor ended with the
Civil War. According to the International Labor Organization,
there remain 27 million people in bondage worldwide. Most recently,
governments and humanitarian organizations have expressed concern
for the children affected by the South Asian tsunami disaster,
and sounded the alarm that child trafficking gangs may be preying
on the thousands who have become orphaned or separated from their
parents. Modern-day slavery is defined as "forced labor, with
no pay, under the threat of violence."
Bok, an activist with
the American Anti-Slavery Group, now devotes his time to promoting
awareness of contemporary slavery. "I am no longer another man's
property, but I still fight for the liberation of others," he
said. "What good is my freedom if my brothers and sisters around
the world are still enslaved?"
In 1986, Bok was abducted
at age seven during an Arab slave raid on his village in southern
Sudan. Bok saw adults and children brutalized and killed all around
him. Strapped to a donkey and taken north, for ten years Bok lived
as a slave to a northern Sudanese family. He slept next to the
cattle he was forced to tend, endured regular beatings, and ate
rotten food.
Escaping to a nearby
town, Bok found a truck driver willing to bring him to Khartoum,
the capital. There, he was jailed for seven months before being
released, and made his way to Cairo, Egypt. He was resettled by
the United Nations in North Dakota in 1999.
Since his escape,
Bok has dedicated his life to speaking out on behalf of those
who are still in bondage. He has spoken on college campuses across
the country, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
been profiled on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and
on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and met with President
George W. Bush. Escape from Slavery was released by St. Martin's
Press and recently won the Suze Orman Award for Best New Author.
The American Anti-Slavery
Group (AASG) is America's leading human rights group dedicated
to abolishing modern-day slavery worldwide. Since its founding
in 1994, the American Anti-Slavery Group has helped free more
than 80,000 slaves, spotlighted and defended the work of local
abolitionist activists around the globe, brought modern-day slavery
into the international agenda, and launched an anti-slavery Web
portal that updates and mobilizes 45,000 activists each month.
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