Movie Review, Monet Boyd
I recently had the privilege of watching the new movie, “12 Years a Slave,” which is based on a memoir by Solomon Northup. Northup was born in 1808 in Saratoga, New York as a free Black man. His book tells the story of his capture by slave traders in 1841 and the ensuing long hard years he spent transitioning from a free life to that of a slave.
He was a father, a husband, and a well-respected man in the north. One of his many skills was playing the fiddle, which benefited him in many ways throughout the movie. Solomon Northup was a survivor. He never lost his identity, though slave masters, overseers, and even other slaves told him to forget his past. In one scene, an overseer beats him brutally just for uttering his real name and proclaiming that he was a free man. Even after his back was stripped of its skin, he still stood tall.
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