Banjo by Claude McKay — Read

Taloufa came from the Nigerian bush. He had attended a mission school where he learned reading, arithmetic, and writing. He was taken to Lagos by a minor British official. And when the Englishman was returning to England he took Taloufa along as a "boy. " Taloufa was thirteen years old at that time. For nearly three years he served his master in a Midland town. Then he got tired of it, full fed up of seeing white faces only. He ran away to Cardiff, where he found more contentment among the hundreds of colored seamen who live in that port. And young, fresh, and naive, he became a great favorite among the port girls. He shipped to sea as a "boy," making Cardiff his home. He was there during the riots of 1919 between colored and whites, and he got a brick wound in the head.

He went to America after the riots and jumped his ship there. He lived in the United States until after the passing of the new quota immigration laws, when, the fact of his entering the country illegally getting known, he was arrested and deported. In America he had joined the Back-to-Africa crusade and was a faithful believer in the Black Star Line bubble, the great dream of commerce that was to link Negroes of the New World with those of Africa. He bought shares in it and, although the bubble burst with the conviction and imprisonment of the leader for fraudulent dealings, Taloufa still believed in him and his ideas of Back-to-Africa.