Black Was the Ink references a host of historical facts after Reconstruction; was that intentional?
Yes, absolutely. I envisioned it [history] as an incredible resource to learn about a time period that I think is largely ignored, despite being so consequential. There were so many incredible people coming right out of slavery, doing things that would blow your mind. I feel like our history goes from slavery, to the Civil Rights Movement. For a 100-year period where it was like, were Black people here, what were they doing? In the book, I show where Blacks had voting rights, ran for office, and [were] buying property, for a brief period of time. Our history, which was the 1870s, where Black people were doing all these things.
What reference did you use to create your characters?
The book has two parts. It’s got the present part, Malcolm, the teenage boy staying with his family on their farm in Mississippi, and then through the help of his ghostly ancestor, Cedric, helps him time traveling in a way to the past. So almost everyone Malcolm meets when he’s in the past is a real person, [with] the exception of a couple of fictional characters. All of the Black senators that he [Malcolm] works with, Senator Hiram Revels, the first Black senator, and Senator Blanche Bruce as well as Congressman Robert Elliot [were real people]. I really tried to make those historical figures come to life. In terms of the present people, they are all fictional.
