Rohn Hein
Social Justice Author
Reviews
Ken Goldberg
Author of: Peter Squared and Peter Cubed
Approaching the semi quincentennial anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, first time novelist Rohn Hein has released a thought-provoking, historical novel, based on the presence of Southern delegate valets (slaves), as they witnessed high ranking dignitaries draft a document that led the colonies into war. This declaration proved to be one of the most highly recognized statements asserting freedom, independence, and self-determination as “unalienable rights” of all human beings. Imagine that! Slaves. Present and serving masters. Expected to stay in the background, quietly, without talking to each other, lest they might foment their own rebellion/revolution aimed to assert those same unalienable rights … life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for themselves. But they did meet, and they talked secretly, asserting what limited power they had. While toggling between the dialogues of three key groups (Northern delegates, Southern delegates, and valets in bondage), Hein forwards another, quite sinister message that is germane for all times, and quite applicable to the present, and that’s that despite the high moral status of our revered Declaration of Independence, it’s wealth and power, not morality and righteousness, that drives the decisions our leaders make and subsequently sends young people into war. Hein’s narrative suggests that the sides would have been reversed had the North, not the South, built an economy that depended on slaves. It’s easy to be moral if you have nothing to lose. But those values can vanish when they carry a cost. Through a fascinating and worthwhile read (reader beware: this could spoil your Fourth of July plans), Hein has added a perspective that few others have.
Linda Delany
The Valet’s was a well written revealing book. It took the reader behind the scenes of the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia. It was very descriptive of the people and settings in Philadelphia. It gave the valet’s serving their masters a voice. It was a radical change from their plantation life as they experienced free blacks in Philadelphia. The book presented an in depth look at the opinions on slavery from the delegates. It examined the forces driving the elimination of the word slavery in the Declaration of Independence. The author recognized the courage and achievements of African Americans in that period. Past slave rebellions were also noted. White slave owners preached they had saved the slaves from Africa. As the issue of slavery is pushed aside the valet’s realized freedom and equality were not meant for them.
Ryan P. Haygood,
President & CEO, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice
America’s founding is often remembered as a triumph of liberty. Through his compelling book, Rohn tells the fuller truth. Set during the Second Continental Congress, it reveals how the fight for independence also preserved slavery. Through the eyes of enslaved Black valets—men who moved invisibly through the corridors of power—the Revolution’s contradictions come into sharp focus. They heard the language of freedom. They experienced its limitations. At a moment when truth is contested and democracy is under assault, this book reminds us why reckoning with history matters. We cannot build a more just future without first telling the truth about how we began. “Rohn invites us beyond America’s founding myths to confront a deeper truth: freedom for Black people was argued, limited, and delayed at the nation’s birth—and that unfinished work, which diminishes us all, still calls to us now.” — Ryan P. Haygood
Elizabeth Pontillo
Author Rohn Hein was intrigued by the question: Why was there no mention of slavery in the final version of the Declaration of Independence, when it existed in the original draft? Because very few documents exist to illuminate the proceedings of the Second Continental Congress, Hein’s ambitious first historical novel attempts to reconstruct what happened between the first and final drafts of this cornerstone of American history. Framing the story around an original conceit, he describes the gathering of the colonial delegates as observed by their enslaved valets – whose freedom, unlike their masters’, was ultimately not attained through the process. Weaving together their imagined conversations, reconstructions of the delegates’ discussions, historical narration, and evocative descriptions of life in colonial Philadelphia, Hein recreates in detail the complex interpersonal story of how the final version of the Declaration came about.
Dr. Mahdi Ibn-Ziyad
Retired Adjunct Prof.
Dept. Philosophy & Religion
Africana Studies
Rutgers U. Camden.
Cherry Hill Unitarian, Universalist Church member,
US Air Force vet
From his South Jersey home in Cherry Hill — only short miles from Revolutionary War battle sites on both sides of the Delaware River and exactly seven miles from Independence Hall in Philadelphia — Brother Rohn Hein has crafted a refreshingly unique historical fictional account of the informal discussions in taverns, at dinners and in sit down formal debates at the 1st and 2nd Continental Congresses. What’s unique is found immediately in the title of Rohn’s work “The Valet’s Witness” where the black slave servants — of famed and obscure white delegates from the 13 colonies, then states gathered to hammer out the framing values and practicalities of our republic — consistently and skillfully found time from their slave chores to engaged in their own informed … via the black regional grapevine and listening attentively to white reps as they pondered daily over advances and set backs … Pompey, Edward Routlege’s key slave he stationed with him in Philly was a master in studying his master’s thinking and mood swings. He and several of his black peers justifiably became increasingly suspicious with the realization that the majority of the white framers actually were in favor of black enslavement even hypocritically so while being very clear about about the value that black subjugation brought to the pursuit of white happiness and wealth. The Routlege brothers slave reliant delegates of South Carolina were centered as Rohn’s voices of white patriotic hope for a conservative white English style democracy (minus a king) and revolutionary change in politics but not in predatory capitalist politics and economic successes based on black slave labor; Native colonization, land theft even in the restrictions of the Northwest Territories; the general repression of non-citizen people of color and disenfranchised women. I am grateful that Ron dug deep into the archives and research about not just the white framers of this republic. He has actually opened a unique and exciting way of reading black Revolutionary era history in Philly in addition to Black Founders like George Washington’s nine slaves brought from Virginia to the early Philly White House; the black sailers and longshoreman at Penn’s landing with news of black revolts and freedom and enslavement in the British Caribbean Islands; the free born, highly literate black religious, professional and business elders, and fraternal organization leaders among whom were Bishops R. Allen and A. Jones. Word! This is an eye opener about the vastly different ways that the still vexing problems of racial freedom, racial democracy, racial capitalism and racial patriotism could have stirred the concerns of unfree and “free” but politically segregated black folk during the Revolutionary period. Philly proud! Here Ron’s last line about Pompey and his black slave comrades. In the 1980’s black Harvard Law Professor and founder of Critical Race Theory Derrick Bell made the same observation in his writings attesting to Pompey’s predictive enlightenment. “Black valets to the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 knew that the freedom sought by (white) colonists would not be rewarded to them”. Get the book! “Rohn invites us beyond America’s founding myths to confront a deeper truth: freedom for Black people was argued, limited, and delayed at the nation’s birth—and that unfinished work, which diminishes us all, still calls to us now.” — Ryan P. Haygood