Forbidden Fruit Read Online Free Page B

“as if my poor heart would break with grief.” The family
     prayed together one last time, and then Smith’s new master took him in chains, his
     ankles chafing from the shackles tying him to the slave caravan. He wound up at a
     cotton plantation with at least three hundred slaves. He lived in a hovel with ten
     people and was strictly forbidden from holding religious meetings. However, he soon
     began singing and praying, and others joined in. The slave driver reported him to
     the overseer, who ordered a hundred lashes for Smith. When the driver brought Smith
     to the cotton gin house for his beating, he demanded to know why the man prayed. He
     even offered to stop beating Smith if he would promise not to pray again. Smith refused
     the man’s offer and took his whipping. The next night he ran away, but the tracking
     dogs quickly found him, and the search party dragged him back to the plantation.
    He now worked with a heavy chain and a clog of iron trailing him; at night, he was
     yoked to a block of wood. For slaves with a history of running, such restraints were
     common. Other instruments of torture sometimes used on runaways included thumb screws,
     billy clubs and the speculum oris, a device that allowed plantation officials to force-feed
     slaves who tried to starve themselves to death.
    But the whippings didn’t work. Smith would still pour out his feelings and let them
     fill up all the space in a room. He prayed for his family. He prayed for acquaintances
     and friends. He prayed for the people who beat him. He prayed for the people who were
     thinking about beating him. Perhaps he prayed as fervently, as fiercely, as Dr. C.
     T. Walker, born a slave in Georgia. Dr. Walker preached an entire sermon on “The Second
     Coming of Jesus Christ,” mostly by repeating two words, “He” and “coming,” until they
     became hammer blows, lightning bolts, roaring drums: “He’s coming, He’s coming, coming,
     coming, He’s coming.” Not only did Walker’s sermon convert many listeners, some people
     actually dove under their seats, convinced that Jesus would stride in at any moment,
     too bright to bear. James Smith must have radiated that kind of power, too.
    He was certainly compelling on one particular night. That was the night the plantation
     slave driver, who was black, heard James Smith praying for both him and the overseer,
     men who had beaten and bloodied him. In the Old South, black slave drivers or foremen
     sometimes worked under the slave owner or overseer, disciplining and supervising field
     hands. Caught between the white and black worlds, some became cruel while others found
     ways to give their fellow slaves small nuggets of kindness. The slave driver on Smith’s
     plantation was so overwhelmed by Smith’s prayers that he unchained him. He asked him
     to continue praying. He asked for forgiveness for his cruelty. And he urged Smith
     to run off, promising that he wouldn’t try to recapture him. That night, Smith did
     what so many runaway slaves separated from their families did. He set off for his
     former home in Virginia, hoping to find his wife.
    He traveled for six to eight weeks, hiding during the day and journeying by night.
     Finally, he found the plantation where he’d last seen his family. Since it was the
     middle of the night, he did not dare knock at the door for fear of rousing someone
     who’d start shouting or screaming. Instead, he eased open the door and crept inside,
     moving toward the corner where his wife used to sleep. Suddenly, a white man wielding
     a pistol and knife lunged at him, yelling that he would shoot him if he took another
     step. On orders from the white man, one of the slaves clubbed Smith in the head, knocking
     him senseless.
    The next morning, James Smith awakened swimming in blood, tied with cords and lying
     in a horse cart driven by the overseer. His captors took him to a Richmond jail, where
     he spent several months. While in jail, he