I had to stop, process what I'd read, let the anger and tears come, and then go back in.
I thought about what real strength is-how Cora keeps getting up even though she doesn't know what new atrocities might be right around the corner. Time and again, people risk everything to help this girl. The telling was so convincing, I had to double-check to be sure I had my facts right.Īs I read, I found myself feeling what Cora feels, being horrified all over again by slavery, and then marveling at the grace and kindness of strangers. But Colson's conjuring was so vivid, I could visualize it. I've been fascinated by Harriet Tubman for many years, and I knew that the Underground Railroad-the network of secret routes and safe houses that evolved in the 19th century to help the enslaved escape north-didn't involve real trains.
He leads her to an actual train, one that travels underground and can transport them out of Georgia to a new life. I found out that Cora is a third-generation slave living on the plantation where her grandmother died, where her mother abandoned her. What exactly is Cora saying no to, and why? Who is Caesar, and how many more times will he have to ask? I wanted to know everything.
The opening sentence got my heart pumping right away: "The first time Caesar approached Cora about running north, she said no." I thought, Okay, you got me. I'd never read anything by Colson (he's published five previous novels and two works of nonfiction and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist), but everything I'd heard about the book-the way it shape-shifts and refracts time and history through the figure of one 16-year-old girl-made me eager to start. I was at home in California when I received an advance copy of Colson Whitehead's novel The Underground Railroad. Decades later, I'm still consuming slave narratives, histories, and novels that help me feel the heat of my ancestors every day. Her words awakened something in me, and I've never forgotten them, especially the last paragraph: "If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!" On that day I began my journey as a student of African American history. After 30 years in bondage, she had become a human rights activist, advocating for women and speaking out against slavery and racism. I was 14 and in my local library when I read "Ain't I A Woman?," the speech Sojourner Truth delivered to a suffragist convention in 1851.
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