Author: Mary E. Neighbour
ISBN: 1 59264 144 X

The following review was contributed by: Kathryn Atwood: Click Here To View More Of Kathryn's   Reviews

"Speak Right On" is a fictionalized biography of Dred Scott, the
African-American slave at the center of the hotly debated antebellum Supreme
Court decision that will forever bear his name.  Scott was a slave who, because
he had lived in the free North with his Southern master for a time, decided
later to sue for his freedom on that basis. His case wound its way through the
courts for ten years, eventually landing in the Supreme Court where the justices
(most of them slave holders) ruled that Scott couldn't sue for anything since
only citizens could bring lawsuits and slaves were not citizens.  The case,
which was ruled on in 1857, enraged Abolitionists and fanned the fires of the
Civil War.

Armed with a few biographical facts but plenty of Southern (and African)
history, Neighbour has sought to flesh out a portrait of the man behind the
ruling and in the process has created a powerfully moving portrayal of the
psychology of slavery.

Because he was too small to be a field hand and because his grandmother was the
primary household slave on the plantation where he spent his boyhood years,
Scott  had a comparatively comfortable life.  Due to the nature of work he was
involved with as an adult (a doctor's assistant), his life was often actually
quite fulfilling.

But the immorality of slavery wasn't about the quality of life,  it was about
the basic human craving for freedom and it is this point that Neighbour
brilliantly illustrates again and again - in often breathtakingly beautiful
prose.  For instance, after his first slavery-related crisis, Neighbour gives
Dred these thoughts: as he realizes the cold hard fact of his slave status: "My
life didn't matter.  My acts didn't matter.  And when that don't matter, neither
does tomorrow.  I stopped dreaming and scheming; stopped feeling the
possibilities.  You could say I come to know I was a slave."

"Speak Right On" is a work of such power - at once disturbing and uplifting --
that even if you are familiar with the story's outcome, you absolutely won't be
able to put it down.