Zandbroz Variety
420 Broadway, Fargo, ND 58102
Store Hours
Monday-Saturday
10 a.m - 6.pm
In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.
In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo's past--memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.
Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjo's unique vernacular, and written from Hurston's perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth-century, Barracoon masterfully illustrates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.
Zandbroz Variety
Since 1989
About Us
ZANDBROZ VARIETY
Since 1989
In 1988, Jeff and Greg Danz had a dream. They would open a store that they would want to shop. So they bought an empty turn of the century building in the heart of downtown Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The brothers spent a year restoring the building and developing the concept for what would become Zandbroz Variety. When the doors opened in May of 1989, Zandbroz was a bookstore with an eclectic mix of other inventory, an old fashioned soda fountain and coffee bar. The store was a hit and a couple of years later a second location was opened in Fargo, ND. Zandbroz Variety started in a world before Barnes and Noble, Starbucks and internet shopping were part of the landscape. That of course all changed and so too Zandbroz has evolved and changed –THIRTY years later and we are still here!
Store Hours
Monday-Saturday
10 a.m - 6.pm