The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales

Now that the reader has heard stories about evil, they can confront the specific evil of slavery in the United States. In Part 4, there are no predatory animals or devils. What’s evil is the system that enslaves people and extinguishes their freedom and humanity. The power that the enslaved characters must confront is slavery, and they use teamwork, community, and intelligence to do so.

The first story, “Carrying the Running-Aways,” is, as Virginia Hamilton mentions in her commentary at the end, a true story. The narrator is Arnold Gragston, a person enslaved in Kentucky from 1840 to 1865, and the National Humanities Center’s website provides a fuller account of his story (“Narrative of Arnold Gragston.” The Making of African American Identity: Vol. 1, 1500-1865). The “man named Rankins, the rest was John” refers to John Rankin (144), a Presbyterian minister in Ohio. Rankin’s home became a station in the Underground Railroad, which wasn’t a literal railroad but a network of secret places that moved people away from slavery and the South. Rankin’s house is a landmark, and people can visit it during parts of the year.

Hamilton maintains the mysterious atmosphere of “Carrying the Running-Aways” by withholding the narrator’s name. The narrator doesn’t know the names of the enslaved people he’s freeing, and the reader doesn’t know the narrator’s name. They both must go without certain information. The story also links to Teamwork and Community, as the narrator works with the woman and Rankin to liberate the enslaved people. Though the narrator doesn’t know their names, they count as members of his community, as they’re all fighting the oppressive institution of slavery.

“The Talking Cooter” features Teamwork and Community as Jim aligns himself with the talking, musical turtle, who helps set Jim Free. The turtle brings back the literary device of anthropomorphism and the idea of magic. In Part 4, magic juxtaposes the harsh realities of slavery. Thus, the appearance of magic becomes more extraordinary. When Jim tells the enslaver about the turtle, the enslaver replies, “Oh, get out! You know that’s not true” (154).

The system of slavery connects to rules as symbols of order. Slavery has rules and order, but the enslaved people continually subvert and confront them, proving the weakness of slavery and the lack of intelligence and imagination in the people responsible for perpetuating slavery. Jim’s enslaver can’t imagine a talking, musical turtle, so he loses Jim. The Master, Overseer, and Driver aren’t prepared for flying people in “The People Could Fly,” so they lose countless enslaved people. Ironically, John’s enslaver, Tom, gives him magical powers as he’s obtuse and doesn’t realize that John “collected all he needed to know eavesdroppin” (161). Nehemiah outwits Mister Warton and becomes free, and the nameless enslaved person in “The Riddle Tale of Freedom” also fools his enslaver. The stories confront the racist beliefs that enslaved people lacked intelligence. They didn’t: They were perceptive and resourceful. Conversely, the enslavers appear ignorant and foolish.

As the collection ends with “The People Could Fly,” Hamilton concludes the book on a positive note: Freedom. The enslaved people who possess the power to fly do so away from the horrors of slavery. The story features the motif of magic in the flying people and the theme of Teamwork and Community, with Toby helping distressed enslaved people fly away. In the tale, flying away symbolizes freedom. The storyteller says, “[The slaves] went so high. Way above the plantation, way over the slavery land. Say they flew to Free-dom” (171). The consequences of passing stories from one generation to the next—in other words, the oral tradition of the folktales—manifests when the narrator writes, “The slaves who could not fly told about the people who could fly to their children. When they were free. When they sat close before the fire in the free land, they told it. They did so love firelight and Free-dom and tellin” (172).

The message is that the act of storytelling can give the listeners the power to fly. In the figurative or symbolic sense, the meaning suggests that by reciting “The People Could Fly,” people who aren’t free, who don’t know how to fly, can learn how to be free and fly.