On Seeing Africa for the First Time: Orality, Memory, and the Diaspora in Isidore Okpewho’s Call Me by My Rightful Name

This paper explores the auto/biographical, panegyric, and cultural features of the different chants, and particularly that of Otis Hampton, a young African American man, in Isidore Okpewho’s Call Me by My Rightful Name within the contexts of orality, memory, and the diaspora. The paper also discusses how Otis’s panegyric poem becomes an archaeological artifact needed to probe his memory and ancestry to unravel the mysteries of the ancient and the contemporary cord that links Black Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. Finally, the paper considers how this cord foregrounds the infamous triangular slave trade, black consciousness, and resistance both on the continent and in the diaspora.