A letter from a former slave to his former master

[Warpy]

I can't really post highlights here since the whole thing is a gem, beginning to end. Do be sure to read to the end: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/to-my-old-master.html

It's a fitting kickoff to Black History Month and a reminder of a system that should never be reconsidered.

[gateley]

1. Wonderful! nt

[barbtries]

2. kicking

very much recommended. i would LOVE to see the response!

[nofurylike]

3. omg, Warpy! rec! i was coming here to post that very thing! it is great!!

thank you so much for posting that!!
AND for leaving it to be read in the whole, since, as you point out, " ... the whole thing is a gem, beginning to end. Do be sure to read to the end .... "

the end is amazing and precious!!

[Number23]

4. I just had to check that this is real

There was a conversation about this on Snopes but no one could confirm that it was a fake. http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=45660

I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

Words fail me. I am in awe.

[nofurylike]

5. whoever, however, it certainly speaks truths, with brilliant irony!

either way, it seems to me that someone who really understands wrote it.

interesting dicussion at that link, thank you for that, Number23! it really adds to the letter itself!

[Number23]

8. Yep!

it seems to me that someone who really understands wrote it.

Even if it does turn out to be a fake, it is wonderfully written with so much humanity. I have no doubt that it would have been the kind that every former slave would have liked to have been able to write to their former masters.

[nofurylike]

9. "that every former slave would have liked to have been able to write to their former masters"

yes!! how i wish we could hear them, all!! how i wish those former masters would hear ...

my mom - wise - says, "they (such evil) will know what they have done, really KNOW, after this life." i often pray that is so.

"it is wonderfully written with so much humanity."
yes, o yes yes.

it also seems that it very well might be, probably is, authentic.
whew, it chokes me up.

[SemperEadem]

6. what an amazing letter!

the truth is so simple it defies logic sometimes.

[NOLALady]

7. Awesome.

One of his sons, Valentine Anderson, became a physician.