America's 'Slave Narratives' should shock us

[Democracyinkind]

1. They never fail to shock me. Happily though, many of them are as uplifting as they are shocking. nt

That is, of course, only true of those narratives that have some sort of "happy ending" (in so far as a happy ending is even possible for someone born as property - the wrongs inflicted surely never got rectified. But the wrongs diminished slowly; and Slavery went with a Bang. So some sort of happy ending was achievable for some slaves, at least when Slavery was overcome).

I think it was Harriet Tubman's narrative, where she crosses the icy Ohio. Rarely have I ever felt so elated by reading as when she described taking those first steps on the northern bank...