"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead Wins Pulitzer Prize & Nat'l Book Award for Fiction

"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead (b Amer 1969) received the Pulitzer Price for Fiction ('17), the Nat'l Book Award ('16) and was Oprah's book selection in '16.  I mention Oprah's selection because it may serve to draw more readers to the accountabilities of the barbarities the white population incurred upon African Americans and Native Americans to build our nation.  "The whites truly believes - believes with all its heart that it is their right to the land.  To kill Indians.  Make war. Enslave their brothers."  Put another war "Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African.  All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man."  Cora is the heroine of this oftentimes graphically apprehensible historic narrative.  Cora is a 3rd generation slave on a tyrannical plantation in GA.  Cora's grandmother Ajarry was captured in Africa and sold into slavery, her mother Mabel fled the plantation seeking her freedom leaving Cora to fend for herself as a young girl.  Mabel's fate is never known to Cora but revealed to the reader at the end of the novel.  Cora is approached by a fellow slave Caesar to make their escape.  The epic sojourn follows Cora as she makes her terrifying & grueling journey north.  Along the way she is helped by whites opposed to slavery & courageous blacks.  There are horrors and treacheries everywhere.  The underground railroad is literal in this novel adding a mystic quality.  It questions how it was at all possible to escape and to gain rightful freedom.  Our nation's birth of European tribes, "Conquer and build & civilize. And destroy that what needs to be destroyed."  Cora & Caesar harrowing journeys lands them in several states.  In SC where they feel secure until it's discovered sterilization being forced on black women & syphilis testing on black males.  Whitehead's novel is ambitious in its scope. Cora's escapes to other locations entail the bravery & humanity of other blacks and selfless whites.  This deeply stirring novel serves as a shockingly brutal understanding of the inhumane treatment of slaves and the abhorrent justifications for its practices.   Whitehead sweeping account holds many moments of great dignity amongst the atrocities.  "A free black walks differently than a slave.  White people recognize it immediately."  Mabel considers her daughter's future as a runaway. "The world may be mean, but people don't have to be, not if they refuse."