In 1856, Virginia said I was “unmarriageable” because of my wheelchair. 12 men said no. So my father did the unthinkable: he gave me to the strongest enslaved man on his plantation. | HO
His name was Josiah. They called him a brute. He turned out to be the gentlest soul I’d ever known. My father called me to his study in March of 1856, one month after Foster’s rejection. One month after I had stopped believing I would ever be anything but alone. “No white man will marry…
