Yesterday grannyhelen published a diary titled Dear Gov McDonnell: This Was Slavery which deservedly spent many hours on the Rec List. The diary opened with the following quote:
"Runaway from the plantation of the undersigned the negro man Shedrick, a preacher, 5 feet 9 inches high, about 40 years old, but looking not over 23, stamped N. E. on the breast, and having both small toes cut off. He is of a very dark complexion, with eyes small but bright, and a look quite insolent. He dresses good, and was arrested as a runaway at Donaldsonville, some three years ago. The above reward will be paid for his arrest, by addressing Messrs. Armant Brothers, St. James parish, or A. Miltenberger & Co., 30, Carondelet-street."
That quote struck close to home for me, very close indeed. I grew up in Donaldsonville, LA and the mention of St. James Parish and the Carondelet Street address in New Orleans leave no doubt that it's my hometown being referenced. When I was growing up there in the 60's and 70's Donaldsonville was a town of about 8000, situated about half way between Baton Rouge and New Orleans at the point where Bayou Lafourche split from the Mississippi River. The town was already fading, bypassed by the Interstate on the other side of the river and looking more to the past than to the future.
And what a past it was. We all knew the stories. I lived on Claiborne St. which was named for the first Governor of Louisiana, known for offering a reward for the capture of the pirate Jean Lafitte who in turn offered a reward for the capture of the Governor. The school that I attended still had on display fragments of the cannon balls fired by Farragut's ships when they shelled the town in 1862. I visited the local plantations, Oak Alley, Houmas House, Tezcuco and others. In college I attended the annual Natchez Pageant held during the Spring Pilgrimage as a guest of the king of the pagent (a king dressed as a Confederate general). Old times in that part of the country are truly not forgotten.
But those old times are remembered through the rose tinted lenses of selective memory. They've edited out some of the story and I never heard of Shedrick the preacher. Historic Donaldsonville is roughly 10 blocks from the levee of the Mississippi River on the north to the railroad tracks on the south and about 11 blocks from Bayou Lafourche on the west to the sugar cane fields on the east. When Shedrick was arrested in Donaldsonville, it probably happened only a few blocks away from the future site of the house where I was raised.
Think about the description in the quote. The man was branded on his chest as a way of marking him as someone's property. When he attempted to escape his feet were mutilated by having his toes cut off. His toes weren't surgically removed - they held him down and hacked them off and cauterized the wounds with a hot iron, no anesthesia, no antibiotics, done with cruelty and intention as way of punishing him for making a bid for freedom.
And in spite of that he tried again. No doubt he knew the odds of success were slim and no doubt he knew what would happen if he were caught. They wouldn't kill him and put him out of his misery, they'd just hurt him and put him back to work because he was a piece of property that was too damned valuable to discard. And even that didn't stop him.
So when I hear the teabaggers talk about Freedom™; when I hear southern governors openly talk of secession; when I hear of idiots like Bob McDonnell issuing proclamations about the sacrifices of the noble Virginians I just shake my head in astonishment because they haven't a fucking clue what freedom is. It's no wonder that the teabaggers and the fans of the Confederacy want to forget men like Shedrick. When you consider what freedom meant to him, not being branded as property, not being mutilated for trying to escape and you compare it their petty fears that their tax bracket might go up a few percentage points or that someone might try to turn the "privilege" of having healthcare into a right, it shows how insignificant their complaints are. No doubt they'd rather engage in a fantasy of a Mel Gibson style noble death with their last dying cry of "Freedom™" inspiring their people to heroic resistance.
But you know what? In spite of all of their idiocy there is coming a celebration of freedom that will truly make their heads explode. September 22, 2012 will mark 150 years since Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. That's right, on the sesquicentennial of the order that freed slaves in this country there will be a black man in the Oval Office. I am looking forward to that day with deep, deep satisfaction.