The Underground Railroad

by Colson Whitehead

Ethel thought it would be spiritually fulfilling to serve the Lord in dark Africa, delivering savages to the light.

the village, where the natives receive her as an emissary of the Lord, an instrument of civilization. In gratitude the niggers lift her to the sky, praising her name: Ethel, Ethel.

Donald had never forgiven her, she told Martin, she was sure of it, and now they were going to swing from the branches of the tree right outside their front door.

When Martin went upstairs to help the girl it was not in the same way her father had gone upstairs, but both men came down transformed.

25 DOLLARS REWARD

RAN AWAY from the subscriber on the 6th of February last, his Negro Girl PEGGY. She is about 16 years of age, and is a bright mulatto,

She will no doubt attempt to pass for a free girl, and it is likely she has obtained a free pass. She has a down look when spoken to, and not

remarkably intelligent. She speaks quick, with a shrill voice. JOHN DARK. CHATHAM COUNTY, MAY 17.

They picked up Jasper three days out of North Carolina. Jasper was a delivery. He absconded from the Florida cane fields and made it to Tennessee before a tinker caught him stealing food from his pantry.

The town clerk approached the famous slave catcher, brokered an arrangement, and Ridgeway now had

the nigger chained in the wagon. He hadn’t reckoned the man for a songbird.

the smart men talking about Manifest Destiny. Like it’s a new idea.

“It means taking what is yours, your property, whatever you deem it to be. And everyone else taking their assigned places to allow you to take it. Whether it’s red men or Africans,

giving up themselves, giving of themselves, so that we can have what’s rightfully ours.

Indian talk about the Great Spirit,”

prefer the American spirit, the one that called us from the Old World to the New, to conquer and build and civilize. And destroy that what needs to be destroyed.

Our destiny by divine prescription—the Americ...

She had never seen colored men hold guns. The image shocked her, a new idea too big to fit into her mind.

You settle down, Mr. Ridgeway.” He moved his head slightly. “I heard him call you Cora. Is that your name?”

“If you want, miss, I can shoot him for you.”

“Though we’d prefer to put irons on them.”

Ridgeway smiled as the men shackled his wrists through the wagon wheel.

Cora kicked Ridgeway in the face three times with her new wooden shoes.

Caesar had never spoken to her but had this figured out about her. It was sensible: She knew the preciousness of what little she called her own.

Cora set her hands on her hips, head tilted as if hunting after a tune hidden in the noise. How to capture that profile in wood, preserve her

grace and strength—he didn’t trust himself not to botch it.

Caesar approached her after the races. Of course she waved him away.

Running was too big an idea—you had to let it set a while, turn it around in your head. It took Caesar months to permit it into his thoughts,

Even if she didn’t know she’d say yes, he did.

She was a stray through and through, so far off the path it was like she’d already run from the place long ago.

The book will get him killed, Fletcher warned.

Wait a little longer until we can make the preparations for your escape,

But if he didn’t read, he was a slave. Before the book the only thing to read was what came written on a bag of rice.

Now a page here and there, in the golden afternoon light, sustained him. Guile and pluck, guile and pluck.

Gulliver, roved from peril to peril, each new island a new predicament to solve

If Caesar figured the route home, he’d never travel again.

Unless she came with him. With Cora, he’d find the way home.

50 REWARD. LEFT my house on Friday evening the 26th about 10 o’clock P.M. (without provocation whatever) my negro girl SUKEY. She is about 28 years of age, of rather a light complexion, has high cheek bones, is slender in her person, and very neat in her appearance.

She is

at present (from appearance) a strict member of the Methodist Church in this place, and is no doubt known to a majority of the members. JAMES AYKROYD OCTOBER 4

Cora was proud of the progress she made with her reading in South Carolina and the attic.

Georgina’s classroom revealed the smallness of her accomplishments.

With Cora, the class numbered twenty-five. The youngest—the six-

and seven-year-olds—were exempt from the recital.

She felt conspicuous, older than all of them and so far behind.

Did they know what was in all those big words?

Georgina said the children make of it what they can. What they don’t understand today, they might tomorrow. “The Declaration is like a map. You trust that it’s right, but you only know by going out and testing it yourself.”

Four months had passed since that first class. The harvest was done. Fresh arrivals to the Valentine farm made it so Cora was no longer the greenhorn,

Indiana nights were a shiver, colder than she’d ever known.

Cora had started braiding the girl’s hair on the mornings when her mother left for work early,