The enslaved boy shook as he was brought inside the prison’s whipping room. The prison door opened and a mean looking white man stepped inside.
Laughing nastily, he said, “Welcome to Hell.”
The white man was Robert Lumpkin, owner of America’s most infamous slave prison, “The Devil’s Half Acre.” The prison held enslaved runaways hostage until they were returned to their enslaver or sold.
Enslaved Africans who questioned authority, like the terrified enslaved boy, were sent to the prison as punishment. Lumpkin brutally beat, starved, and tortured his captives, but he had a secret.
His “wife” was an enslaved woman named Mary he’d been raping and impregnating since she was 13. Mary despised Lumpkin.
Mary built community with the captives, sneaking them things and offering kind words. She even helped some captives get free.
Lumpkin left Mary the prison when he died. She helped turn it into a school, and today its ruins remain on Virginia Union’s campus.
Archaeologists found evidence that those imprisoned likely built community as a means of survival. But this proves what we already know.
Oppression has much more power when we isolate or divide ourselves from one another. Like Mary Lumpkin teaches us, helping our community is necessary if we’re going to win the fight for liberation. We cannot win alone.