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“In the 1950s, when someone asked ‘who was High John?’ an elder would reply, ‘High John was an African prince, the son of an African king, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. He was never to be a slave. He could not be broken by the slave breaker and he disobeyed the slave master at every opportunity. He was a troublemaker for the white man. He ran away, stole food, destroyed property, and led a band of rebels in many slave rebellions. Finally he was captured and publicly executed for all the slaves to witness. But before he died, he told the crowd of slaves looking on that before his spirit flew back to Africa he would leave a bit of it in the root of a certain plant. That whenever they needed hope or whenever they wanted to rebel and needed the spirit of protection to help them, to get that root and they would have a bit of his spirit.’”
-Katrina Hazzard-Donald, Mojo Workin’: The Old African American Hoodoo System
