A New Beginning: My Journey with Addy

Addy pleads with him that he’s making a mistake, stepping toward the man instead of away from him, insisting that we’re free and that her momma works nearby.

He cuts her off before she can finish, growling at her to keep quiet while he digs through his vest pocket, certain he’s got an advertisement somewhere for the likes of her.

He pulls out a thick pack of newspaper clippings and starts flipping through them, muttering names under his breath. Georgia. Mississippi. Alabama. He looks up from the papers to study our faces, then back down again, like he’s trying to match us to a description.

My pulse pounds so loud I can hear it in my ears. I glance at Addy, hoping she has some plan I haven’t thought of, but she just stares at the man’s shaking hands, her jaw clenched tight. Neither of us moves. Neither of us runs. We’re stuck here on the sidewalk while a stranger decides what to do with our lives based on a stack of paper.

I decide to speak up myself, keeping my voice as calm and steady as Gran always tells me to when I have something important to say, and start to tell him that we are not who he thinks we are.

He cuts me off too, his eyes blazing, and snaps that these slave owners are looking for their runaway property, and he gets paid right nicely for bringing it back where it belongs.

It’s the money, I realize with a cold jolt. This man looks at slaves and sees dollars instead of people. The unfairness of it makes my stomach twist so hard I feel sick.

I think about the two-cent piece tucked in my pocket, the one that once belonged to great-great-granduncle Charley. I could rub it right now and vanish from this whole mess without a scratch. But then I think of Addy and her momma slipping away from the plantation in the dark, risking a bullet or a hanging just to walk toward a freedom that was supposed to be theirs already. I think of my own Mom and Dad, and how frantic they’d be if some stranger tried to drag me off a street corner. I can’t let this man take Addy back to slavery. I won’t leave her, not for anything.

I scan the sidewalk for anyone who might help. That’s when I spot a man in uniform weaving through the crowd, and I tug Addy’s sleeve to point him out. Her eyes go from scared to hopeful in an instant, and we both start waving our arms and shouting as loud as we can for the officer to help us.

The slave catcher roars at us to be quiet, shoving his papers back into his pocket like he’s suddenly in a hurry to hide them.

The policeman ambles over, in no particular rush, and asks what all this is about. I blurt out that this man is trying to take us away, but the slave catcher counters with a heavy sigh that we’re runaways, like we’re the ones wasting his time. Addy insists that’s not true.

The officer looks between us and asks if we have papers. Neither of us carries anything of the sort, so we shake our heads, and my heart sinks a little further with every second the officer doesn’t smile or step closer to help. Then he turns to the slave catcher and asks if he has papers on us. The red-headed man nods without hesitating and claims they’re back at his office.

The officer pauses for only a moment, glancing once at the crowded street like he has somewhere better to be, then tells us to move along.

Addy cries out in protest as the slave catcher grabs her arm with one hand and mine with the other, his grip closing tight around my wrist. I can’t believe what just happened. Is the officer really going to let this man drag us off without so much as checking his story? Doesn’t anyone here understand that this is not okay?

“Please, talk to Reverend Drake at Trinity A.M.E. Church,” Addy cries out to the officer as the slave catcher hauls us toward the street. “He knows us.”

The policeman only squints, watching without moving, as though two girls yelling for help is an everyday nuisance rather than an emergency. He doesn’t follow. He doesn’t even step off the curb.

The slave catcher pulls Addy and me toward a small horse-drawn cart waiting at the edge of the street, its wooden wheels caked with mud, its horse stamping and snorting at all the shouting. My shoes scrape against the cobblestones as I try to dig in my heels, but it does nothing against a grown man’s strength. Some people on the sidewalk stare openly, their faces creased with worry they don’t act on. Others glance away fast, as if they can’t see us at all, as if two girls being dragged down a Philadelphia street is nothing worth stopping for.

I search every passing face for someone, anyone, willing to step in, but no one does. The slave catcher’s fingers dig harder into my wrist as he shoves us both forward, closer and closer to the cart’s open back, and the crowd simply parts around us like water around a stone.