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Legacy of Freedom |
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| Legacy of Freedom by Karen S. Gardner & Mike Robinson Highbridge Press 268 pages, 2000 ISBN 0967883210 Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart Delilah was never a beauty. At ninety-seven, only her feistiness and sense of what is right remains. At her grandson’s wedding reception, she begins to tell her life story. A tiny, headstrong, loyal woman, she has lived by a code passed on by her sister-of-the-heart Adah, when they were young slave girls on Guillaume Henri’s plantation: They gonna be a time when you want to freeze an’ you want to die. And you can’t die. You got to think, instead. Legacy of Freedom chronicles an amazing life lived as a slave, a freed woman, a businesswoman, and more importantly, as a woman. Delilah Smith must use her wits to survive. As her story moves from the South Carolina plantation where she was born and across the nation to the hills of San Francisco, Delilah relies on Adah’s code to stable her nerves, and her heart. Delilah and Adah’s lives on the Henri plantation are full of abuse and hardship. When Henri needs inordinate sums of money to take his wife to Vienna for the cure, he quickly realizes that the easiest way to wealth is in the breeding of human beings. He subjects his female slaves and young girls, some as young as eleven, to vicious multiple rapes. The early part of Delilah’s life is glossed over in a few pages, giving the first part of the novel a rushed feeling. After her initial rape, Delilah gives birth to a son. The story leaps ahead to her second birthing, four and a half years later. At the Charleston slave market, her son is sold away from her; but Malcolm MacRae, a Scottish immigrant, buys her and her baby daughter. Suddenly, Delilah is treated with respect, considered part of the family, and valued for her thoughts, abilities and opinions. Her intelligence is shown to be far superior to that of the white woman she calls "Missy." Delilah and Malcolm’s wife Ardis become best friends and confidantes. Here, the Negro and Scottish dialects employed throughout by the authors were difficult to follow, especially in long conversations. In an effort to improve Ardis’ health, MacRae moves the family to California, and this move makes for the richest part of the novel. Delilah begins to demand the freedom California blacks have. Malcolm sees it differently. She was a slave when they arrived in California and, regardless of the laws of the state, she is still his property. In an unprecedented move, Delilah sues Malcolm for her freedom (taking her lawyer’s name as her surname) and wins. She starts her own laundry business, and eventually marries Hank, a railroad man. The story seemed to unravel in a hurried tone at this point. Delilah and her family find themselves in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake. Some characters introduced here didn't seem clearly identified. And Delilah’s story, framed by her great-great-granddaughter’s interest in her family’s history, detracted from the heart of the story. Yet the nucleus of Legacy of Freedom is how one woman used her intelligence to rise in the world, from her own sense of worthlessness to her realization that all people of all colors have a place in the world. Gardner and Robinson offer a unique perspective of life from an intelligent woman’s point of view. |
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