Slavery: Simple Words, Stark Reminder

"I owned Silas Brown."
— Dr. Cyrus N. Brown, Yazoo City, Miss.

"He was owned before & during the war by Dr. C.N. Brown’s wife, thereby getting the name of Brown."
— Tibby Johnson, wife of Silas Johnson, formerly Silas Brown.

These references to Silas Johnson's early life as a slave appear in his application for a Civil War pension. Both are still in my mind weeks after I read them. These simple declarations provoked an immediate emotional response: Surprise that these individuals acknowledged slavery in such a dispassionate way; sadness for a man deprived of freedom and education during his early life; repulsion and disappointment for a man who participated in the ownership of another human being; a sense of loss for the millions of men and women of color who endured centuries of racism.

All of this feeling charged through my body in an instant. Simple words. Stark reminder.

I was unprepared for the depth of my feeling. I know slavery is a moral wrong and that it is at the center of our greatest national crisis. I learned this from books. Silas Johnson and Dr. C.N. Brown lived it. Their simple, dispassionate acknowledgment of the fact, devoid of feeling, somehow makes it all that more personal for me.

It is experiences like this that drive me to tell the stories of men like Johnson.