‘To my old master’ – a freed slave answers the request to return to his old plantation

In the events series Letters Live, performers read notable letters – old and new, original and written by others – in front of a live audience. In this video from the Letters Live event at the Town Hall in New York City in 2018, the US actor Laurence Fishburne reads a letter from Jourdon Anderson, who, at the time of his writing in 1865, had escaped slavery in Tennessee and was living in freedom in Ohio.

In his writing, Anderson responds to a letter from his former master, Colonel P H Anderson, who, in the wake of the Civil War’s end, asked if he might return to Tennessee to work for him again as a freedman. Delivering a withering and ultimately widely reprinted response, Anderson notes that he’s quite happy in Ohio, but may just consider if he’s given backpay for his 32 years of unpaid labour – with interest – both as fair compensation and as a sign of goodwill. Delivered with magnanimity and an understated humour, Fishburne’s performance makes for a deeply satisfying turning of the tables while providing a brief-yet-intriguing window into the era.