My truth lies in the African proverb which states: “The hunter tells the story that makes him the hero, and than the lion tells his.”

Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States: “My own convictions as to Negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses … We recognize the Negro as God and God’s Book and God’s Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him — our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude … You cannot transform the Negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be.”

Barack Obama, president of the United States of America: “And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part — through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk — to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.”

Karen Frederick

Vicksburg