The latest episode of AHS features the lore of Bloody Mary. Legend has it, if you light a candle in a dark room and say her name 3x into a mirror, she will appear. It also states that she will either be malevolent or benign depending on your soul. The point of chanting her name in the mirror is to invoke a reflection of your true self. While I did find the entire episode quite enchanting, there was a particular part that JUMPED out at me.
In the episode one of the four girls who summoned Bloody Mary dug into her past. She learned that Blood Mary was an enslaved woman who thought she found freedom on the Underground Railroad. To her dismay, she and the other enslaved people that were fleeing the south were turned over to slave catchers by the woman housing them. AHS referred to it as a “Reverse Underground Railroad.” That bothered me a bit. It also made me wonder if these were real. If that when my ancestors thought they found a kind soul, a safe haven, a true passage to freedom; they’d actually found cruel, soulless, and evil individual(s).
The horror of slavery is an irremovable stain on America’s history. So much of that history was told, not by the unfortunate people who endured such treacherous treatment. But by those physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually maiming them. It brings me great discomfort and sorrow to wonder what was not told. What was hidden? What is the entire truth? We may never know, but the thought that a Reverse Underground Railroad existed sends chills down my spine.
What do you think?
