Many enslaved adults recalled horrific experiences on the auction block.

Charles Ball was four years old when separated from his mother.

On the day of his sale, he was naked and never owned any clothes.

His new owner dressed him, but Ball vividly recalled that his poor mother, who knew it might be the last time she saw her son ran after him.

She took him down from the horse and held him tight, then wept loudly and bitterly over him.

When it was time for him to leave, she walked alongside the road

beside the horse, pleading with the owner not to take her son. After being physically

separated, his mother was whipped and Ball remembered the cries of my poor

parent as they became less audible the further he traveled. Despite the fading sounds of her cries,

and as young as I was, Paul explained,

the horrors of that day sank deeply into my heart,

and even at this time, though a half century has lapsed the terrors of

the scene return with painful vividness.

That was Diana Ramey Berry reading from her compelling new book, The Price for

their Pound of Flesh, The Value of the Enslaved From Womb to Grave in the

Building of a Nation. You can hear the horrifying context of that passage and how

it fits into the larger history of our country right now. Professor Berry, thanks so much for being on the podcast today.

Thank you for having me.

You know, the beauty of that reading, talking about Charles Ball is that we're hearing his voice

hearing the slaves story from the's own perspective is truly incredible. How did you do that?

Well, for me, so much of the scholarship on slavery used slave to enslaved people as objects.

So they were almost props on a stage.

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