I am an abolitionist, to put it lightly. I lived in a country where the main mandate was equal to the most fraudulent untruth.
Since I was a young girl these outright lies were beaten into my mind until they were a way of life. With every "yes, master" we became more immersed in a pool of familiarity. Escape was a whisper in the wind of my mind, first introduced to me by my grandfather. He himself had been captured in his homeland and brought to the land of equality. He remembered how it felt to get up in the morning without the ball and chains of injustice weighting him down or without a wave of intolerance washing over everyone around him.
For hours, into the night, he would speak of his true home. As he spoke an unconscious hope would cloud his eyes. I knew he desperately wanted to see his home again and I knew he wouldn't.
English: Black Cherry flowers in Hamburg. Deutsch:...
English: Black Cherry (Prunus serotina) bark detai...
Abolitionist John Brown, bust-length. Engraving fr...My grandfather also taught me the importance of reading and writing. He said that knowledge was power and something that could never be taken away from me.
My grandfather died and there went my last living family. I wanted nothing more than to fulfill my grandfather's dream of going back to his home and many other slaves' dreams of escaping but alone I would never be able to escape and the thought melted into the back of my mind.
Until one peculiar humid Virginia day, I went to my post to start washing clothes and a white note was set atop my basket. Flipping it open, I scanned the letter then the surrounding forest. The note had read, "Round up 4 to 5 slaves and go out to the black cherry tree in the woods at sundown." I quietly and quickly...