My review of The Underground Railroad #TuesdayBookBlog #PulitzerPrize #PulitzerPrizeChallenge #AmReading

*Contains Mild Spoilers*

Growing up next door to a town that boasted the last, certified stop on the underground railroad as its one and only tourist attractions, I thought I understood the history of slavery. Then, I went to college and studied history and realized the history of slavery I’d learned at an American high school had been whitewashed (pun very much intended). Still, I didn’t understand the cruelty, the fear, the sheer relentlessness of slavery. As a white person who grew up in a liberal Northern state, maybe I never will. Reading Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, however, did bring me several steps closer to understanding slavery and its wide social and economic impacts.

I imagine Cora’s story, except perhaps (and unfortunately) the ending, was not an unusual one. Whitehead paints a clear picture of the cruelty visited on her at the plantation, as well as during her flight. I was not surprised (though I remain appalled) to read that the runaway slave advertisements with which each chapter begins were actual advertisements that Whitehead had plucked from the digital collections of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The dehumanizing of the slaves is never far from the forefront, but at one point this shocking and inhumane practice slaps the reader in the face. Cora is shocked when the slave catcher, Ridgeway, shoots a slave he had caught instead of returning the slave for the reward. Ridgeway cruelly explains that he wasn’t worth it. When he compared the bounty versus the cost of actually returning him, it wasn’t worth the trouble. I can’t help but cringe as I write those words, because this sort of calculation actually happened. (And the use of ‘it’ instead of he or she when referring to slaves made me simultaneously angry and sad.)

Whitehead does an excellent job of portraying Cora as a real person. She makes mistakes. Oh boy, does she make mistakes. But she is very much a real person. The reader has the privilege of watching as she slowly learns to overcome the cruelties visited upon her. Her reflections on whether people receive their just deserts made my heart break.

Nowhere in the novel does Whitehead sugarcoat events. He even adds discussions between freemen and runaway slaves as to how to proceed in the future. This novel is a must read for everyone. Its themes, especially regarding the dehumanizing of certain races or religions of people, remain topical. If only we could finally learn to not repeat our mistakes of the past.