Forbidden Fruit
Forbidden Fruit
is a collection of love stories gathered from the descendants of runaway slave couples, unpublished memoirs and diaries, family reunion publications, Civil War records and numerous other previously untapped sources. And though many of the accounts end in triumphs of sorts, others do not. What they all do share is the amazing spirit of the people whose tales they relay.
The story "The Man Who Wouldn't Grow a Beard" begins along the dusty roads of Georgia and recounts the escape of a slave couple. Ellen Craft was so light skinned she was often mistaken as white, and it was exactly that that enabled her and William Craft to make their escape. Disguised as an ailing older white man, the woman hid her illiteracy as they made their way North, William Craft posing as her servant. From here, their treacherous journey eventually continued to England where their safety was secured-and it is the tale of their escape itself that offered them opportunities in education.
Writes DeRamus, "But Ellen and William Craft were no longer the same slavery-shaped couple who had fled Georgia in 1848. After traveling thousands of miles to freedom, they began a series of inner journeys, changing all the while. They finally had children, five of them, and spent two years at the Ockham School near, Ripley, Surrey, a trade school for rural youth Ö" It was their efforts upon their return to America that showed their true enduring spirit and commitment to the cause of equal opportunities for blacks.
Angeline's Blues tells of the plight of the free blacks in the North in the mid 1800s. At the time, stories spread of free blacks, especially children, being kidnapped and taken south to be sold into slavery. Angeline Palmer is protected from such a fate by her family members. Spirited off to a safer location in Massachusetts, her half-brother accepts jail time for a presumed kidnapping rather than disclose her location. Isolated but safe, she remains there, finding another kind of love.
In her introduction, DeRamus notes, "Many of these couples received help from the Underground Railroad, as it is commonly known, a sometimes organized, sometimes informal and sometimes spontaneously assembled network of people and places that sheltered fugitives. However, in most cases they began their journeys alone or created their own networks, finding help whenever and wherever they could." As memorable as the existence of the Underground Railroad is, it is the individuals who make it unforgettable.
When Winter Come
When Winter Come
Written as historical fiction in poetic form, tells the story of York, William Clark's slave who traveled as part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The trek, begun in 1804, encountered numerous tribes-and part of the mission was to impress upon these groups the strength of the U.S. forces. Whereas Walker's earlier book, Buffalo Dance, told York's story from York's point of view-using the journals of Lewis and Clark as references, this new book relays the perspective of 12 other people. His wives, William Clark, Native Americans encountered; even a piece of his clothing and his knife offer another point of view. Writes Walker in his opening pages, "(This book) seeks to validate the voices of enslaved African Americans and Native peoples during a time in history when their points of view were considered invalid." With some foresight the poem "Umatilla Prophecy" begins, "Our people will be herded like buffalo, and walked backward from their own lands until they fall off a great cliff." Poignant, emotional and at times, haunting, When Winter Come opens a new chapter to a familiar book in America's annals.