JULY 6, 1998: On a blustery day in May, Harvard's Houghton Library threw a party to welcome Omar ibn Said back into the historical record. Ever since 1995, when Omar's 167-year-old autobiography resurfaced in an old trunk in Virginia, momentum had been building toward this moment, when the six professors who have invested the most time in studying this long-dead slave gathered around one table to determine where, precisely, Omar ibn Said should fit in the popular imagination.