Send Judah First: The Erased Life of an Enslaved Soul

A young girl’s life is shattered when she is stolen from her African village in a midnight raid. Ruthlessly torn from her family to be beaten, chained, degraded, and enslaved in a heartless world she can barely comprehend. The slave ledger at Virginia’s Belle Grove Plantation only reveals that Judah was purchased to be the cook, gave birth to 12 children, and died in April 1836. But, like the other 276 faceless names entered in that ledger, Judah lived. Brian C. Johnson’s important work of historical fiction goes beyond what is recorded to portray the depth, humanity, and vulnerability of a beautiful soul all but erased by history. For Judah, as Johnson notes, “did the ultimate—she survived. Not as a weakling, but resilient and determined.”