For the first time, he had some hours of his own, with no one telling him how to spend them. This left him time for reflection. As he thought back over the events that had brought him to Fatherland, his mind kept returning to the barber of Natchez, William Johnson, and the unaccustomed sight of a Black man with a crystal inkstand and a fine vellum journal. There was a power in knowing how to read and write, he’d always felt so, despite his father’s views.
