The Underground Railroad

by Colson Whitehead

The other patrollers were boys and men of bad character; the work attracted a type. In another country they would have been criminals, but this was America.

Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African. All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man.

People always got things wrong, on purpose as much as by accident.

Here’s one delusion: that we can escape slavery. We can’t. Its scars will never fade.

The Great War had always been between the white and the black. It always would be.