In 1864, Jourdon Anderson and his wife escaped a life of slavery and moved to Ohio. A year later, he received a desperate letter from the man who used to own him, in which he was asked to return to work on his now ailing plantation. Jourdon's magnificent reply, performed here by none other than Laurence Fishburne at Letters Live at The Town Hall in New York back in 2018, was dictated by Jourdon and reprinted in numerous newspapers.

Jourdon Anderson never returned to Big Spring, Tennessee. He passed away in 1907, aged 81, and is buried alongside his wife and eleven children.