I am a girl of 17 years old and in the 8 grade at Knox Academy School.
It is hard to imagine going living through this period of time as a young girl. She didn't have the funds to complete her education, which I'm sure added to her trouble finding a job. You can hear the desperation through her writing and it portrays the reality of what most of these people were experiencing.
It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges.
A good reminder for all of us - with privileges come responsibility.
No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.
Beautifully written. The "leap from slavery to freedom" doesn't happen overnight, and the mental leap can be a tedious one. Re-training their minds to think beyond what they've known all their lives must have been difficult, but his outlook is spot on.
Plessy declined and refused, either by pleading or otherwise, to ad- mit that he was in any sense or in any proportion a colored man.
Interesting that the conductor was singling out a man who was only 1/8 colored... Not sure this would look like anything more than a nice tan. Conductor was obviously looking for a fight.
One half the world don’t know how the other half lives.
An unresolved issue to this day... People then (and people now) were uneducated about the realities of slave life. Breaks my heart to see how they were treated.
I would rather stay here and starve, and die if it comes to that, than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters.
There is a lot of intensity here. There are obviously previous situations that are having a toll on him (Matilda and Catherine), making him hesitant to make any moves in an effort to protect his daughters. I can imagine this being his top priority.