Dear Ms Higginbotham,

I sympathize dearly with your assertion that “race must be seen as a social construction” and “a highly contested representation of relations of power between social categories by which individuals are identified and identify themselves”. You may have read my husband's account of our escape from slavery, detailing how I passed as a White man. I was able to understand through my first-hand experience, that my legal race, my personal identity, and the way people saw me were at odds, and through that, that race must be socially constructed.

Although I didn’t have the words for it at the time, I didn’t need an education to understand. My experience manifests your points. My husband’s definition of my real race -- “almost white” shows the nether land I fell into in those days. Of course, I was considered Black and a slave.
I was able to cross this arbitrary line between “Black” and “White” to escape, but I have never been able to really escape my history as a slave. This line, in your day, still stands strong and deeply important in your society.

I beg for you to continue fighting to show the truth of race, so that people like me can be free from its restrictions.

Sincerely,
Ellen Craft

Questions:

1. Despite the amounts of racism Ellen and William Craft encounter once they escape from slavery, they seem to be mostly indifferent to it. (“We also informed her that we would be sorry for her ‘customers’ to leave on our account and as it was not our intention to interfere with anyone, it was foolish for them to be frightened away… we would be glad to leave”) Do see the same indifference? Do you think it is problematic?

2. I found a strange lack of Ellen Craft’s voice and point of view in Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom. How is the story diminished without her voice?