Jerry Smith

here that this writer considers slavery one of the greatest evils ever inflicted upon another human being. There cannot be either legal or moral justification for such a practice.

The movie tells the true story of Solomon Northup a free black man from Upstate New York in the years before the Civil War. Northup was played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, a black actor from England. It will not be the design of this column to tell the story depicted except to give the setting ( Everyone from Miss Geraldine Legg’s English classes at Calhoun High with the practice of a written book report each grading period will understand “setting.” There were nine and then six grading periods in our days of high school).

The story is how Northup was deceived into believing he was going for two weeks from his home to publically perform his outstanding talent of playing the violin. Northup was kidnapped and carried into the South as a slave. In painful and terrible scenes the extent of how terrible slavery was is depicted in this movie.

After 12 years, Northup found his way back home. It is beyond my comprehension how one human being could inflict the emotional, mental and physical pain upon another. It is a sin. Slavery in America: Probably all readers are familiar with the story of slavery in America. It is argued that slavery was the cause of the Civil War. Another position is also set forth that slavery was not the primary instigation of the war. I don’t know. Here is what I do know:

The war was long over (some 60