Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad

by Betty DeRamus

Forbidden Fruit is a collection of fascinating, largely untold tales of ordinary men and women who faced mobs, bloodhounds, bounty hunters, and bullets to be together — and defy a system that categorized blacks not only as servants, but as property.

In the true love stories of Forbidden Fruit , you will meet sixteen couples who fought for love—love between slaves, between slaves and masters, and between slaves and free black folks. There is the fugitive slave from Virginia who spends seventeen years searching for his wife. A Georgia slave couple that sails for England with federal troops trailing behind. A white woman who falls in love with her deceased husband's slave. A young slave girl who is delivered to her fiancé inside a wooden chest.

Acclaimed journalist Betty DeRamus gleaned these anecdotes from descendants of runaway slave couples, unpublished memoirs, Civil War records, census data, magazines, and dozens of previously untapped sources. This is a book about people pursuing love and achievement in a time of hate and severely limited opportunities. Though not all of the stories in Forbidden Fruit end in triumph, they all celebrate hope, passion, courage, and triumph of the human spirit.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, African American, Historical, American History, Research, Audiobook

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Caitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories are not well written and there is an awkwardness to the text. But this is forgiven in favor of the content. Slavery is such a scourge on our country's history, but this collection of run away slave narratives is remarkable. What people did for love, the very people who were believed by Thomas Jefferson to only feel superficially, is extraordinary.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories where both moving and fascinating. A true testament to the power of love. The writing style however just felt a little off to me. These stories are powerful all on their own no so some of the build up in the introductions felt forced and unnecessary. That small complaint aside Forbidden Fruit is well worth the read.

[Maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

The subtitle simply does not adequately describe the incredible stories DeRamus relates here. The people whose stories she tells in Forbidden Fruit are mind-blowing; I can't imagine having to do the things they had to do. Some of the people had to walk for thousands of miles, until they reached Detroit or Canada; some shipped themselves folded up in small crates; some were chased by dogs. I suppose that the details of their escapes are not so different from the details of the escapes of many slaves prior to the Civil War, but DeRamus really brings the stories to life.

She focuses on slaves who were escaping in order to stay with their spouse or family, or to be with a man or woman with whom they'd fallen in love. Included are several stories of interracial couples, of former owners and slaves becoming couples, and of slave couples being separated.

The stories are very moving and so important. I think slavery is something a lot of people don't really think about anymore, but these stories are important, and remembering these people is important.

The book is enjoyable and inspirational. If you want to feel grateful for your life, for the fact that you have freedom and choices, not to mention food and clothes, you will after reading these stories. You may also be inspired to feel more grateful for your spouse and to reflect upon how lucky it is to have married the person you love and to have been able to do so. Of course, some of us still can't marry freely, but I'm hopeful that will change soon too.

[Yaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories are both heart-wrenching when you feel for the families being separated and brutalized and inspiring when you think about the lengths people went to be together. I hear the challenges and injustices people fought through to be able to be with the people they love and it makes me really think how strong the people in these situations had to be and how much they believed in the love they shared. The love that they have for each other is visibly the most valuable thing in their lives. Today sometimes being able to be with the person(s) you love seems taken for granted. Reading this I think how blessed I am to be able to share a life with someone who I love. People who want to be together should be able to and others should not stand in the way of their happiness. The Betty DeRamus does a great job gathering these stories and sharing them.

[Tara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I rarely just put a book down before finishing it but this was bad. I had such high hopes for this one! Love stories from the underground railroad! How can that be bad? The author's thoughts were all over the place. It was like she would start a story then forget who she was talking about and start describing someone that was an acquaintance of the main character. She wrote this book like it was her first. Sure enough it was. She wrote a second book a few years later on the same topic. I'm not going to waste my time with trying to see if she got any better.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a compilation of sad love tales during the slavery era. Read only if single because then you'll start questioning your lovers loyalty and envisioning to what extremes would they go to save your love. It touched my heart. It doesn't follow a storyline if not the author just brings to light all the love stories behind those wretched times.

[Lynette · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories are fascinating and the writing beautiful. I literally groaned with disappointment when I turned the page and saw I had reached the end (it seemed like there were a few more chapters, but the bibliography is quite long.)

[Briayna Cuffie · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I could’ve only deducted half a star, I would have. This was a great compilation of stories. I wish the editing/organization of them had been a bit better (for cohesiveness), but I loved the diversity of them all, nonetheless.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Powerful and important stories. Took me a while to finish because I just kept getting lost and confused in the writing.

[Kira Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring

[Catherine Berger · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is off putting and doesn’t match the respect due. Quick and easy read to learn about individual lives and the suffering they endured. The strength, courage, and noble living is commendable.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Betty DeRamus writes with incredible compassion. Her appreciation of the characters is evident in her warm narrative voice as she retells these sometimes beautiful, sometimes cruel tales regarding slave runaways and the sacrifices and strife they willingly endured in the name of love. There are stories where a slave carried his weakened wife in his arms as he crossed several states towards freedom, a young slave girl allows herself to be secretly shipped via steamboat from the inside of a wooden chest for 18 hours as the steamboat transports her to her fugitive slave sweetheart, and another tells of the remarkable journey of a slave couple that disguised themselves as aristocratic whites to board a train to freedom. DeRamus can be wordy at times, but it is only because the picture she paints of these true stories of struggle is one that needs to be understood with every detail available. To all enthusiasts of 19th century America and the complex way of life suffered in those times, do read "Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad" and allow yourself to be inspired by the acts of courage, and love, and those individuals who thrive within the pages.

[Lori · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting topic, unfortunately the author is not a very good writer. I hate when writers had way too much description to fill up the page. Wondering if these were originally articles published elsewhere since there is some repetition of material and also that would explain the wordiness. There is limited factual information so the author relied on excessive descriptions to fill the book instead of trying to fill in the gaps with a "fictionalized" accounting. She also often drifted off course to discuss the histories of other people involved in each story she was trying to tell.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this book to get a view of Charles Wright's next project for stage and television. CW is collaborating with others to produce a made for television movie called "Freedom Run" and also with Stevie Wonder on a musical for Broadway.
These true stories make good material and I look forward to seeing them on stage and screen.

[Risha1983 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was a collection of love stories between slave and free couples as well as interracial couples; how they risked their lives, suffering through immense hardships just to be together. This well-researched book is a testament to the power of love on the human psyche.

[Barbarawiley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat interesting and inspirational but began to be repetitive.

[Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, well-researched book by one of my favorite journalists giving us a rare look into a little known or acknowledged aspect of our history.

[Constance Chevalier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully told love stories from the 1700s to right after the Civil War. I enjoyed the writer's gift of crafting metaphor with facts about the Underground Railroad and the people who used it.

[Ted Hunt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of the book is very honorable and inspirational, as it examines the workings of the Underground Railroad, one of the great resistance movements in world history. Unfortunately, the quality of the book is very uneven, and the writing is not always precise, and is often not at all concise. The prose often sounds as if it were taken out of a mediocre novel. An example: "...the United States moved ever closer to another kind of darkness, one in which men from the North and the South with Bibles in their pockets would kill each other over an idea already coughing and wheezing on its death bed." If one of my eleventh grade history students turned in a paper written in that fashion, I would ask him or her to rewrite it. More significantly is the superficiality of the study. While reading the book, it often felt like I was looking at someone's family photo album, where each photo was related to each other, but there were few common threads or themes. The author presents a series of stories (i.e.,the individual photographs in the "album"), and while a couple contain narratives that deeply explore the story of a man and woman running from slavery, many seem like just a collection of names and small towns in the rural north. In the section of the book that examines interracial couples, the author has a chapter that is just a timeline of the "highlights" of the history of interracial relationships in the United States. I'm not sure why the author chose to provide this type of timeline for this one part of the African-American history, and not, for instance, the history of lynching. At times she goes off on real tangents (why all the details about the developments of military technology during the Civil War? What on earth does that have to do with the Underground Railroad?). I did take away a few interesting stories that I will use to illustrate some of my classes, and I was very interested to read that one of the descendants of a runaway named William Still was a man named Arthur (Art) Still, who played defensive end for a couple of seasons with the Buffalo Bills. In the end the book did confirm a couple of important truths about American slavery: its application was very, very idiosyncratic and uneven (the author had an interesting phrase for this, as she called American slavery a "shadow land"), and American slaves were constantly looking for ways to undermine the institution. It is a short book (and it could be shorter, considering how wordy the writing is and how many irrelevant facts are included), but if one wants to tackle a quality book about the Underground Railroad, I would recommend Eric Foner's "Gateway to Freedom."

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is little that is "romantic" about this book. The lovers overcame great obstacles to be together, in many cases because the couples were biracial. Tales include the struggles of hiding, evading bounty hunters, walking incredible distances and crossing rivers. Many of the stories are "finished" by telling of the legacy of the couples- in their lifetime and that of their heirs.

The style suffers from the trials of recreating these stories after so many years. Drawing on newspaper accounts, genealogies, census and other historic sources makes for some dry narrative and drags the story line. I did the audio, and there are multiple narrators. Some are more pleasing to my ear than others.

But I learned a lot, including about a family in my own state that I had never heard of before. At times it was a slog but I am glad I listened to it.

[Chanel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent nonfiction account of stories regarding love, survival, challenges, death and triumphs during/after slavery and an introspective perceptive on life during the Reconstruction period. African Americans have contributed tremendously since arriving here to the United States in 1619 as indentured servants. It would benefit our society to include not only our contributions but other ethnic group’s achievements to the construction of America. This is what truly makes America great.

[E.D. Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alternately heart-wrenching and inspiring stories about the lengths to which real men and women have gone to be with their loved ones, despite the grave personal risks associated with slavery and state-sanctioned racism. Full of interesting historical information about early U.S. laws and systems relating to people of color. Narrative style that made this almost impossible to put down. An important and illuminating book, especially for North American readers.

[Jennifer Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a bunch of short stories of slaves making their escape. I havent seen this many stories in one pkace ans its important for us a as black people to know that our ancestors did fight back. These are some of the stories you will never here about otherwise.

[Kate Johansson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book shows a whole new view of what slaves had to go through in life. All the stories are very different however they all have one objective: Love. This book gave me a new view of the obstacles slaves had to endure for simple life. If you do not like history, this is not a book for you.

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating collection of stories about slaves not only running to freedom but in some cases, sacrificing their freedom and safety for their loved ones. It also included information about interracial marriages and romantic relationships. An inspiring and thought-provoking read.

[Briana · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories themselves were good but the writing was lacking something to make the book more engaging. I still enjoyed the book because I learned a lot about this history topic.

[Sandi Rubin-Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of mostly untold true stories of some of the people who took extraordinary measures, risking their lives to be together.

[Kelsey Mangeni (kman.reads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very excited about the idea of this book, and I really liked all of the Michigan history, but unfortunately it ended up being very repetitive and most chapters I skimmed the second half...

[Kyeatta H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a big baby. These stories were full of hope, love, willingness to fight for love and family. Rocking it all for love. Just studies that rug at the heart.

[Betty Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of love stories about slavery era couples, some enslaved, some free, most black, few interracial. Their love armed their spirits and sustained them.