The title of the book comes from William Wordsworth’s homage in 1802 to the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture: “There is not a breath of the common wind / That will forget you” – a wind that carried ideas propagated by sailors, slaves and free people of color. engaged in Atlantic trade.

Julius Sherrod Scott III was born July 31, 1955 in Marshall, Texas, near the border with Louisiana. His father, a Methodist pastor, served as president of Wiley College in Marshall (as did his grandfather) and, in 1970, was appointed executive director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta. Dr Scott’s mother, Ianthia (Harrell) Scott, was a librarian.

In 1961, Scotty, as he was known, was one of two black students who entered the first grade of MacGregor Elementary School in south-central Houston. White students had separate toilets for boys and girls. Scotty and the black girl in her class were relegated to a separate toilet outside of the school.

His parents only heard about the separate facilities when they heard their son say his prayers: “Thank you, God, for allowing me to have my own bathroom at school. “

Publicity regarding her parents’ protests to the school board prompted teachers to allow the two black first-graders to use the indoor washrooms. After Scotty finished second year, the family moved to Providence, RI, where his father became Assistant Chaplain at Brown University.

Dr. Scott graduated from Brown with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1977 and received his doctorate from Duke. Besides Professor Renne, he is survived by his mother and his two brothers, David and Lamar Scott.

Dr Scott was inspired to write his book as a teenager, he said, as he watched the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, where several athletes from the United States praised the Black Power, the prompting them to consider their relationship and means of communication with black athletes. Africa, the Caribbean and South America.