Prince Among Slaves: The Remarkable True Story of An African Prince Enslaved in Mississippi, And His Journey Home (2025) by N.H. Senzai & Art by Anna Rich

Prince Among Slaves is a picture book biography featuring the life of West African prince, Abdulrahman Sori, born in 1762. As a child, he attended school and learned from the Quran. Brimming with intelligence, he was sent to university in Timbuktu at the age of 12. He learned astronomy, law, Arabic, four African languages and more! Upon his return home from university, a lost, sick Irish surgeon named John Cox stumbled upon his village. His father, King Sori, ordered the village to nurture this Irishman back to good health.  John and Abdulrahman became friends and after some months, John returned on a ship back to Ireland. Soon, Abdulrahaman would also find himself on a ship - but this was a transatlantic slave trade ship headed for America. Most of this book details Prince Abdulrahaman’s time enslaved in Mississippi. His Muslim faith gave him the strength to continue in the face of unbearable injustice. Against all odds, Irishman John Cox reappeared in his life and even President John Quincy Adams played a role in Abdulrahaman’s final return to Africa, right before his death. 

Head: This picture book is excellent for a 3rd-8th grade classroom. I would use this picture book with my students while teaching the Transatlantic Slave Trade or while diving into a discussion on human rights and the UN Declaration of Human Rights. 

Heart: I read this book right before I learned the U.S. started sending people without due process to Salvadoran gulags. I’ve been thinking a lot about human rights recently. When I taught the U.S. Constitution to 7th graders, a large portion of our curriculum focused on essential questions like, “What are the rights and responsibilities of a citizen?” I feel profoundly committed to the idea that our responsibility as a citizen of this world is to stand up for marginalized, impoverished and struggling humans. My favorite quote from Eleanor Roosevelt is highlighted in this powerful human rights video: “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.” Something to think about in these times: What are each of us doing close to home to uphold equal justice and equal dignity for all?