12 Years a Slave and the 21st Century Resistance
If you’ve never read the memoir or viewed the Hollywood adaptation of 12 Years a Slave here is a brief recap: Solomon Northup was a Black man born free in New York State. He had traveled to Washington DC because he was offered a traveling musician job but was kidnapped and sold into slavery.
He remained captive for years and was ultimately rescued when a Canadian working on the plantation secretly sent word to New York of Solomon’s whereabouts. New York had a law and task force that recovered free people who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery.
Solomon brought legal action against those who kidnapped him but due to a law in DC, Blacks were unable to testify against whites in court so those men escaped prosecution.
There is so much to digest and unpack in his story. It’s hard to even wrap my head around the fact that hundreds of thousands of people were held in bondage and captivity in this very country for HUNDREDS of years.
It’s even harder to grasp that many of those people born into captivity also died in captivity, never having felt or tasted freedom.
I can’t even begin to imagine or unpack that.
Most disturbing of that history are the hundreds of thousands of people who went along with the status quo.
Never speaking up and even accepting people as property as the norm. Some even using scripture and religion to try and justify something so unjust and abhorrent. Moreover, and even more upsetting are the people who fought and died to KEEP people in bondage. Then when slavery was outlawed those same people set about to continue to KEEP those newly freed persons from truly ever gaining equal footing through the implementation of Jim Crow laws and their progeny.
I could go on for months and years talking about this but I want to circle back to Solomon’s story.
Aside from the obvious horrors he experienced was the massive injustice he received after he was found and returned home. His voice was silenced because of a bogus law forbidding him from being able to testify against the very people responsible for his stolen years and trauma. Even more unjust is the fact that the government refused to prosecute everyone else involved in the horror and trauma.
The injustice he experienced is not fathomable.
Had it not been for the ONE person willing to risk his own safety to help Solomon by sending a letter to New York, Solomon may have died a slave.
How does Solomon’s story relate to the 21st century resistance?
It takes brave people who are willing to risk their careers, reputations, and relationships to stand up to an unjust system and unjust laws to really create change.
Pick any struggle du jour and this applies. It’s fashionable these days to protest and to march. But what happens when the novelty wears off? Will people still be standing up and speaking out?
That’s when it really counts; when you’re one of the few people in the streets and ringing the alarm.
Whether you feel strongly about DACA, CHIP, police brutality, inequality, government overreach or all of the above, be the brave person who rings the alarm about Solomon’s predicament.
Don’t let people’s families get ripped apart by the government because it’s the status quo and doesn’t really impact you.
Don’t stay silent just because this is how things have always been.
