Shadow and Sunshine

Book excerpt: The narrative's final section, "Scenes from Slavery," consists of a series of anecdotes about the cruelty and hardships of slavery. Included are descriptions of the indignities endured by slaves on the auction block and the pain of forced separation from family that often accompanied a slave's sale to a new master. The most shocking anecdote involves a woman who, after Emancipation, marries a younger man, only to later learn that he is her son who was sold away as a child during slavery. These stories were initially told to Suggs by her mother, and she reprints them as a testament to the horrors that the slave system permitted.