“Sold Down the River” is Tied to Terrible Deeds

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Rosemary Wallace, and I’m calling from Marion, Massachusetts.

Hi, Rosemary. Welcome to the program. What’s on your mind?

Recently, I visited the EJI Legacy and Sculpture Garden in Montgomery, Alabama. It’s part of the Equal Justice Initiative, and it is overlooking the Alabama River. And while I was there, I was thinking about the term being sold down the river. And I wanted to know kind of the origins and its interconnectedness to really the South and the Alabama River.

So sold down the river.

Martha, I know that you’ve been there.

Yes, I’ve been to Montgomery and visited. I assume that you went to the Legacy Museum there?

Yes. And across from the Legacy Museum, there’s the sculpture garden that they’ve just put in.

Right, right. They put that in last year. I haven’t been to that. I’ve been to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice up the hill.

Did you go to that as well?

Yes, absolutely. And I was able to find my family’s name on it as well.

Oh, you’re kidding. Oh, wow.

That’s a big moment. So, Martha, just for everyone who’s not aware of what we’re talking about, this place is about civil rights.

Yes, yes. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is a memorial to some 4,400 black people who were lynched in this country between 1877 and 1950. And I think you’ll agree that it’s one of the most important works of public art anywhere in the world, Rosemary. I mean, it’s profoundly moving. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to go there and see a family member’s name.

Yeah, it will never be the same. And I think just having the opportunity in silence to really look over and see the rushing waters of the Alabama River just really, it tells you about the history and the interconnectedness of words in their journey, you know?

Right. And so that’s why I called.

Oh, wow. Well, I’m so grateful to you for sharing your story about going there. And the question about being sold down the river, I know that the Alabama River there, it’s pretty close to the Gulf. Usually the phrase being sold down the river or go down the river or be sent down the river referred historically to the Mississippi River. You know, we talk about the phrase sold down the river sort of these days being simply a betrayal. But as you suggested, it has an extremely grim past because people who were enslaved in the upper south or the midlands of this country, places like Kentucky and Missouri, they were threatened with being sold down the river literally to the deep south where conditions were so harsh, backbreaking work in the cotton fields or sugarcane fields, the extreme humidity, the unspeakable suffering. And this was used as a threat to keep enslaved people in line.

There’s, in fact, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, there’s a line that I’ll never forget that goes, the threat that terrifies more than whipping or torture of any kind is the threat of being sent down the river. And besides the physical threat, there’s also the psychological one, because being sent down the river or sold down the river often meant the threat of family separations as well. And to me, it’s kind of shocking that this phrase has undergone a process of what we call amelioration, because it has a very, very grim and shameful past.

Yeah. And, you know, thank you. Thank you for sharing that because standing and being around the monuments, some of which have children and talk about these deplorable conditions, I don’t know that I would ever use that phrase or think about the phrase the same way ever again.

Exactly.

So it’s that journey, you know.

So thank you.

Exactly.

Rosemary, we thank you for sharing your story with us and bringing this question to us so that we could talk about this troublesome part of American history and this difficulty of choosing the right language.

Well, thank you for diving in. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Take care now, Rosemary.

Yeah. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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