.jpeg)
rohn hein
All About Me
Rohn Hein is a first-time author with fifty years of involvement in non-partisan community activism. Starting as a VISTA volunteer in 1973, he worked for five different non-profit organizations working with welfare recipients, senior citizens, urban housing, racial justice, and environmental efforts in Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York and New Jersey. For the last 40 years Rohn was an investment adviser while volunteering with social justice activities in affordable housing, racial justice, and environmental issues. Rohn has written testimony presented in the Minnesota and New Jersey Legislature and appeared at numerous churches, city council, county, and regional government agencies.
He works with many New Jersey non-profit organizations on racial justice issue, such as The NJ Institute for Social Justice, Salvation and Social Justice, NJ NAACP, Fair Share Housing, and UU Faith Action. He has worked on landmark affordable housing legislation and on the enactment of a racial justice impact statement on legislation in New Jersey.
My HP Books
The Valet’s Witness, reimagines the drafting of the Declaration of Independence through the intertwined experiences of Edward Rutledge, the youngest delegate from South Carolina, and his enslaved valet, Pompey.
Set in Philadelphia during the charged meetings of the Second Continental Congress, The Valet’s Witness follows Pompey as he navigates the shadow world of black valets, who though invisible to history, bore witness to the same debates, betrayals, and ideals as the delegates they served. Rutledge grapples with the need to protect slavery while seeking independence for the colonies as Pompey quietly gathers stories, overhears arguments, and shares insights with other valets, forming a hidden network of observers whose lives are shaped by the very document that omits them.
Rutledge is determined to eliminate any language in the declaration that might undermine slavery in South Carolina, as he believed had happened one year earlier when most these delegates, including himself, met and agreed to Continental Association that sought a limiting of the slave trade. Meanwhile, black valets for most of the southern delegates at the Second Continental Congress meet and converse about the events that are happening in dining rooms that they share with their masters. The listening skills of the slaves equip them with more information about the happenings in Congress than any other group of people. The slaves reflect on the irony of their enslavement while the delegates negotiate with themselves about seeking to overturn the enslavement by The Crown they believe is limiting their lives.
Rutledge seeks out other delegates who he believes will be sympathetic to the goal of eliminating references to the slave trade in the Declaration of Independence.
Pompey uses the skills of a valet in the plantation system to gather information and to communicate with other black valets who are attending the Continental Congress. Through encounters with his peers, the slaves speak about the events happening around them and how it reflects on their lives in a slave society.
The Declaration of Independence is well known for never mentioning slavery, but The Valet’s Witness shows how that happened.
