American Boy: A Life Inspired by American Ideals

by Fola Soremekun

Overview

This is an exhilarating autobiography of a dreamer, adventurer, historian, and a pioneer. In a captivating narrative that holds the readers attention throughout, Professor Soremekun weaves emotional, heartfelt, and sometimes humorous stories of his life in the context of his beloved family, his unshakeable faith, and major historical world events all of which greatly influenced him. The theme that drives and sustains him is truly the American spirit, in which he steeped himself at a young age. That and an innate drive early on in life earned him the nickname American Boy by his Nigerian peers. The culmination of his dreams was his journey, by sea, to the United States for school in 1956 and a half-century teaching career that periodically took him back to Africa (Nigeria and Zambia) and to traverse other continents and countries around the globe. After retiring in 2012 from Citrus College in California, Professor Soremekun returned to his native Nigeria where he currently lives out his dream of training a new generation inspired by the same ideals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781973623090
Publisher:	WestBow Press
Publication date:	03/29/2018
Pages:	330
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.74(d)

About the Author

Professor Fola Soremekun was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria on October 10, 1934. He came to the United States, aboard a freighter, in 1956 to attend college and ultimately earned his PhD in history from Northwestern University, got married, and started a family. In 2012, he retired with over fifty years of experience teaching at colleges and universities across America, Africa, and other parts of the world. The author of numerous scholarly works and books, he and his wife, Elizabeth, also a professor, founded Highlands Education International (HEI) and HEI school in Gembu, Nigeria, where they currently live. He has three daughters and five grandchildren. www.highlandseducation.org.

Editorial Reviews

2018-09-14

A debut memoir traces a professor's intricate journey from Nigeria to the United States.

Soremekun grew up in a Nigeria still under British rule during World War II. As a child, he observed both modern colonialism and the long-lasting traditions of the native population. His larger-than-life grandfather, who lived with several wives on a compound, was ruled by superstition even as the family became Methodists. From there, the author's father moved the family to Lagos, which, for Soremekun, was like "a giant theater" of activity and excitement. It was also in Lagos that he proved his worth as a student, earning outstanding marks in the British school system and opening the door to a university. But movies, issues of Reader's Digest, and various pen pals would instill a deep fascination for the United States—an interest so intense it earned him the nickname "American boy." Soremekun eventually chose to study history at a college in Kansas, making the long trip by boat, and then completed a master's and Ph.D. in history, concentrating on African studies, at Northwestern University. Throughout the rest of his adult life, the author and his wife, Elizabeth, would go back and forth between California and Africa. He would work as a church janitor, a laborer, and a scholar of Angolan missionaries, eventually founding a school benefiting the next African generation. As a historian, Soremekun delves into the context of his life events without generalizing or ever oversimplifying. He examines how, even as a child in Lagos, he was able to see the ways that colonial rulers used tribalism to sow discord among locals, giving police powers to certain groups and not to others. He writes with care about the simultaneous liberation of Africa and the civil rights movement in the United States in the early 1960s, discussing the "alienation" of continental Africans from African-Americans. The author has perhaps packed too much into one work, leaving some of these subjects underdeveloped to continue relating the various incidents of his long life. Still, this remains a captivating story.

A rich and detailed account about Africa, America, and the importance of history.

Kirkus Reviews