A poem for today’s Black History Month art & poetry event in front of Placerville Courthouse:
Master, Slave
for William Wells Brown in 1849
Who, under God, is master? A mortal, holding you in bondage, selling you to this task-master or another, each one crueler than the last?
Or the plain, kind Quaker who took you in, a fugitive, as family; gave you his name,
put you on the road to freedom? He never answered to “Master.”
What of the steamship captain you served, ferrying escaped slaves across Lake Erie
to Canada? You didn’t make that flight yourself,
but stayed, daring “the bond” that would return you South again. You spoke, and your words broke chains in men’s minds.
In Paris you were a U.S. delegate for Peace. Your countryman Mr. Burritt, master of 50 languages, arranged for your carriage and called you Brother.
You shook the hands of Victor Hugo and M. De Tocqueville. Men awaited your words
like gold coin. You raised Black men’s hopes
and White men’s eyes. You asked for nothing but a just world, as you searched
– under God – the meaning of that word “master.”
~ Taylor Graham
