In The Underground Railroad, Michael is a slave in Georgia in the 1850s who was taught to recite, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” This is one of many powerful scenes in this novel that show how the ideal of “equality” fell short in America during that time. Author Colson Whitehead also writes graphically about cruelty and injustice, which makes this a difficult book to read. I woke up thinking about these characters in the middle of the night. They haunted me. This best-seller won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Whitehead, Colson. The Underground Railroad. Doubleday, 2016, p. 180.