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“Ending Modern Day Slavery – One Slave at a Time”
will be the subject for a speech to be given by author
Francis Bok during an upcoming Fine Arts and Lecture
Series event at Dalton State College.
Bok, who has
written a book entitled Escape from Slavery: The True
Story of My Ten Years in Captivity and My Journey to
Freedom in America, will be on hand at 7:00 pm on
Tuesday, October 28, to share his personal story. The
event is free and open to the public.
“Francis Bok is a
young man who was born in southern Sudan who has a
fascinating life story to share with students and
community members alike,” said Jane Taylor, Director of
Public Relations at Dalton State. “He was enslaved at
the age of seven during an Arab militia raid on the
village of Nymlal, and endured many hardships in
captivity for more than 10 years.”
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Among the hardships he faced, Taylor said, was witnessing adults
and children being brutalized and killed all around him during
the raid. He was later strapped to a donkey and taken north to
Kirio, where he spent a decade as a family slave to Giema
Abdullah.
“While serving as a slave, Bok was forced to sleep with cattle,
endure daily beatings, and eat terrible food,” Taylor said. “He
was called ‘abeed,’ black slave, was given an Arabic name, Dut
Giema Abdullah, and was forced to perform Islamic prayers.”
Once he was able to escape from captivity in 1996, he faced
other hardships, Taylor said. In the town of Matari, he was
enslaved by local policemen for two months. He managed to escape
to Khartoum, but was soon arrested by security forces and jailed
for seven months. After being released from jail, he escaped to
Cairo.
In 1999, the United Nations resettled him in North Dakota. Bok
is now an Associate at the American Anti-Slavery Group in
Boston.
“We cannot rest until my people are free,” Bok said during a
Capitol Hill ceremony in May of 2000 before a crowd of senators
and congressmen.
Later that year, Bok became the first escaped slave to testify
before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in hearings on
Sudan that were broadcast live on C-Span.
Since then, he has authored his autobiographical account of his
life as a slave, has been featured in The Boston Globe, The
Christian Science Monitor, and other newspapers, and has
appeared on numerous radio and television programs. He also
launched the website iAbolish.com of the Boston-based American
Anti-Slavery Group.
For more information about this event, please call 706-272-4469.
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