passages was installed at Snug Harbor in Staten Island, New York in 2001 for an exhibition entitled The Past is Still Here. In 1833, Snug Harbor was opened as a home for aged naval and merchant seaman. Most worked on merchant ships, some were surely aboard ships carrying cargos of my ancestors to the Americas. Historians believe that 11 to 15 million people were taken from Africa and sold as slaves to the Americas, Caribbean islands, and Europe - with up to 600,000 of them transported to the United States. During the course of the American Civil War which was between 1861 and 1865, 18,000 African American men and more than a dozen black women served in the U.S. Navy.

passages explored the presence of the past through family memories, historical facts and the ghosts of Snug Harbor, a site that now functions as a cultural center. Sailors who had lived and worked on the water came to die at Snug Harbor. Slaves brought to the "New World" lived and died during the "Middle Passage" and on plantations such as those that existed in Staten Island. Ships and trade routes, water and land become the metaphors for life and death.

passages was dedicated to my brother Clarence Thompson, Jr. (1931 - 1967).

Several months before Junior's 16th birthday, he fell in love with a girl. Celeste was all he could talk about. Just one week earlier, girls were held in contempt, below his radar. Now he strategized obsessively about how to get Celeste to notice him. In the evenings after school I watched as he practiced what he was going to say to her the next day. As he floundered for words to express tenderness, I felt sorry for him even though he was the same brother who would beat me up when Mama was not home. One day he learned that Celeste had eyes for another boy. Even though he had not been able to express his love for her, he felt angry, betrayed, disappointed that she would have eyes for someone else. One spring evening not long after that, he did not come home. More than a week went by before my father found out that Junior was in a Navy boot camp. Having just turned 17, he quit school, put his age up and made the decision to "Join the Navy to see the World." A few months later he sent home a Navy studio portrait. Since that time I have seen many a sailor in front of that same backdrop.