JAMESTOWN, Va. Just beyond the remains of a Confederate military earthwork, past the site of the first English settlement in the New World, you come to the James River -- where the first Africans arrived on these shores as slaves. Spirits of the ancestors occupy this place, as I'm sure any African American who has ever visited a slave harbor will understand. We often conjure their spirits during visits to places like Goree Island; at ports in New Orleans and Charleston, S.C.; in Barbados and Brazil; and here in the Virginia Tidewater, at what passes for an Ellis ... (more)