Nightjohn Essay

Deonte Burston

Nightjohn In regard to how African Americans valued literacy during the time of slavery, I perceived that it will make you or break you. I took that idea away from the movie “Nightjohn.” If African Americans could and would read, it would empower them, giving them the ability to learn and one day free themselves from the harsh living and pain of losing loved ones. The movie focused on John, an African American slave who was being sold. John was advertised as the best, but his flaw was that he always got into trouble. Even though he was insulted, beaten, bruised and sold for $50 without his clothes on, he stood on his two feet, strong like a soldier in the field. Little did his new master know the John knew something that would soon change the world as it was. One night in the hut after a hard day of work, John asked for a trade of “tobacco for letters.” That is when Sarny and John met because Sarny accepted the trade and John immediately started to teach her the letters of the alphabet. Before John began teaching her, he warned Sarny that she could and would be punished if caught. Sarny was an 8 year-old, hardworking and determined to learn, who found letters fascinating. She started to use her time when working in the master’s house to learn letters while she played with his youngest son. Sarny also read the letters sent between the master’s wife and the doctor. In this part of the movie, she showed me that time should be used wisely and that when you have something worth learning you should not let anything stop you from knowing the unknown. Even though Sarny did wrong later by stealing a bible from the master’s house, she wasn’t doing it for the wrong intention. She just wanted to teach herself to read. Sarny showed me her dedication to learn, regardless of the punishment that she would endure. One day when Sarny was taking care of the youngest son of the master, he ran into a room that had a book containing slave names and what they were worth if sold. Sarny recognized the letters in the names, but she did not recognize the numbers that were next to them. She was furious and wondered why John had not taught her all the letters, not knowing the symbols were numbers. John told her that they were numbers, not letters, and she began teaching herself numbers. Soon, the bible was found by the oldest son and he took it to his father. The master brought the slaves together and tried to get them to confess to stealing the book. However, slaves stayed loyal to each other and didn’t say a word. The son started to beat Deli another female slave, because she took the blame for stealing the book. John stepped in and stood up for Deli and took the punishment. John’s punishment wasn’t a beating, but it was his finger getting cut off. John showed me that it is important to stand up for what you believe in and to be loyal to a friend or family member. After receiving punishment, John was sold. Two slaves who were trying to run away needed their passes signed. Sarny agreed to sign the other pass that John did not get to sign before he was sold. The slaves got away but dropped the passes along the way. The master tried to track the slaves down, but couldn’t because they were gone. He found the two passes that the slaves had dropped and noticed that they were in two different handwritings. The master knew one of them was John’s, but he wondered who wrote the other pass and he tried to find out. The master stormed through the door of the church with a frown on his face, gun in one hand and passes in the other. He said, “I have two passes, one written by a slave who is no longer here and the other by a

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