Runaway Love

One of the most interseting chapters in Forbidden Fruit is called Hound Dogs Hate Red Peper, it's about a run away slave named Issac Berry who fell in love with a white women, named LucyEsther Millard, who offered him sips of cool water and chunks of red-hot pepper. DeRamus writes, " it as been passed from one generation of the Berry family to the next". Berry was a fiddle-playing, ox-driving, horseshoe-making slave, that began walking from Missouri to Michigan in the spring of 1858. On his journey he encountered two white men, who stop and confronted him about his were abouts. Since Issac was feeling so threatened by the men, he pulled out a Bowie knife for protection. Thoughtout the whole time Issac had only one thing going on in his mind, his promise to meet Ester in Canada. DeRamus writes, "For what Isaac was planning he could have been whipped until the sun got tired of shining on fat fields and thin slaves. He could have been dragged by dogs, castrated or buried up to his neck in Missouri mud, sugar sprinkled on his head to draw flies. Until well into the twentieth century, real or imaginary relationships between black men and white women-a suspicion of rape, the whisper of love-became grounds for lynching and mutilating black men." Issac took it upon himself to defy the law and continue relations with the white woman that he met. This was a bold move for Isaac to make.

It is clear that they are truely in love. I found on Deramus 158 Lucy and Isaac are spending intimate times together. It says that once Lucy read the bible to him "the two of them fell under each other's spell" as I read this passage I quickly invisioned a lovely couple sharing their love for each other. Isaac and Lucy have true love and the color of their skin doesn't play a huge role in their decisions. My question is why did he go with this if he knew that if he was to be caught it would cost his life? This goes with my theme; love knows no color. Jessica I would like to know your opinion on this specific matter...do you think it was worth Isaac to risk his life to be this woman? Would you risk your life for your partner?