the TAP (topic, action and parameters) principles for effective prompts

Inquiries regarding work, rent, consumption, and sociality should be continually conducted for DSA members.

Class power arises from working-class institutions, not advocacy organizations

transforming them into weapons that our class can wield.

In short, our lives are dominated by capitalism. Only capitalists and the upper strata of society benefit from this arrangement.

ChatGPT lacks the ability to truly understand the complexity of human language and conversation. It is simply trained to generate words based on a given input, but it does not have the ability to truly comprehend the meaning behind those words. This means that any responses it generates are likely to be shallow and lacking in depth and insight.

y. Diversity is more than race, gender, or religious differences. Culturally responsive teaching and diversity issues are inte- gral components of the discipline of multicultural educa

Critical consciousness helps students develop a broader perspective of the sociopolitical consciousness in order to critically analyze societal relation- ship

t culturally responsive pedagogy rests on three criteria or propositions: (a) Students must experience academic success; (b) Stu- dents must develop and/or maintain cultural competence; and (c) Stu- dents must develop a critical consciousness through which they "challenge the status quo of the current social order" (Gay, 200

that teaching in academia cannot re- main in a one-size-fits-all model grounded in Western ideology. Educating students to live and work in a global society is the vision of higher educa- tion institutions. With the advancement of technology, learning about other countries and people is no longer regulated to a page in a

Demographic Chan

n, too. The under- lying premise of culturally responsive teaching is to provide equitable educational outcomes for all stude

epithets

Steve Robinson,

.

.

When we live our lives in association with others, it becomes difficultto establish the necessary distance for autonomous thought. In all areas ofour lives, we are subject to “aggressive and exploitative socialization”(Marcuse, 1978, p. 5) that forces us into constant association with thosewho believe things are working just fine

llautomatically directed toward making systems work better, rather than withchallenging the moral basis of those systems. Each person’s belief in thebasic efficacy regarding the way society is organized is reinforced by con-tact with others in the society. Removing ourselves from the influence ofothers is a revolutionary act, a step into, rather than a retreat from, the realworld.

To him, true autonomy, thatis, separation from the contaminating influences of conformity and con-sumerism, arose out of the individual’s opportunity to abstract herself fromthe day-to-day reality of the surrounding culture.

services and peer interaction, could actually be considered to offer more,not fewer, opportunities for the development of critical awareness

For Marcuse, however, escape from such a society was notjust a matter of collective action. It also entailed rebellious subjectivity—a deeply personal change in the instincts and impulses of each individual’spsyche. Such a change was dependent on characteristics such as inward-ness, privacy, distance, and isolation that are not strongly emphasized incritical adult education but that are common currency among acceleratedon-line programs that value learners’ pacing themselves in their studies.Only with isolation, distance, and separation could a learner developrebellious subjectivity

exorianshaveonlyavagueknowledgeofhumanbeings.Asortofidealab-straction,takenfromTerranobjectsthathavefoundtheirwaytoRexor.Books,mostly.Secondarydatalikethat.TheRexorianideaofTerraisbasedoncenturies-oldTerranliterature.Romanticnovelsfromourpast.Lan-guage,custom,mannersfromoldTerranbooks.

“Noteasing!”Gusshoutedexcitedly.“Nomoreteasing!”HeandLesterandJilldrewclosetogether.“Neveragain!”

ordsheneverusedbefore.Wholenewphrases.Metaphors.Ineverheardhimuseametaphorinallourfiveyearstogether.Hesaidmeta-phorswereinexact.Misleading.And>)“Andwhat?”Thepencilscratchedbusily.“Andthey’restrangewords.Oldwords.Wordsyoudon’thearanymore.”“Archaicphraseology?”Frankaskedtensely.“Yes.”Jillpacedbackandforthacrossth*smalllawn,herhandsinthepocketsofherplasticshorts.“Formalwords.Likesomething—”“Somethingoutofabook?”

Well,ifyouleavehimyou’llbefreetomarryagain.You’restillclassedassexuallyadequate,aren’tyou?”

isleanbodywasbentlikeacoiledspringoverthetapescanner,coldgrayeyestakingintheinformationfeverishly,analyzing,appraising,hisconceptualfacultiesoperatinglikewell-greasedmachinery.

“Notevenforamonth.Whenhecomesyoucantellhim.Ifyouhaven'tthecourage,I’lldoit.Ican’thaveachildrunningaroundhere.Ihavetoomuchworktodo.

“Merelyanopinion.Anexpressionofemotion,nothingmore.

nd with the same childlike eyes that a little while before those children had—oh, how grown- up they are now!—I sit there, looking at my old children, standing behind these new ones, and there is great compassion in my gaze.

“There, that proves it’s all a joke. You’ve got white hair too.”

Very solicitously they make me sit down, so that I shan’t feel so weary. Me, weary? Why yes, they know perfectly well that I can’t stand on my feet any longer and that I’m in a really bad way.

ow looking wide-eyed with terror at this old man’s face, without being able to convince myself of the truth of what I’m seeing? What, am I old already? So suddenly! Just like that! How is it possible?

ensation of irritated tiredness which needs well-regulated and useful habits, simply in order to maintain itself in being. I’ve al- ways had a horror of them. I want to run away. It’s quite impossi- ble that this is my house. This is a nightmare.

ell, this much is quite certain: just as would happen in a dream, when the night has passed and dawn has ushered in the morming, she’s no longer there in that bed. There’s no trace’ of her. And the bed which was so warm during the night, is now, when you touch it, freezing cold, just like a tomb. And the whole house is filled with that smell which lurks in places where dust has settled, where life has been withered away by time.

I somehow feel myself to be a stranger here, a kind of intruder.

I pretend I’ve understood.

t’s undoubtedly of great value, but that it’s one of a series which was withdrawn from circulation some time ago. ’'m not to worry, however. If it’s presented at the bank by someone as im- portant and respectable as myself,

woman portrayed in that little photograph assures me that the banknote’s mine. But can you teally trust a charming little head like that, so ruffled by the wind?

is in the place where you put your fiancée’s photograph.

t, no matter how hard I try, I can’t recognize her. Is it even remotely possible that so lovely a woman as she can have slipped my memory?

s if it had fallen into a stream or down a well and then been fished out of the water again.

omething like a small leather wallet tucked away in the breast pocket of the jacket.

djusting our assessment systems to favor labor over the gifts of racial habitus sets up assessment ecologies that are by their nature more ethical and fairer to all.

ealthy writing assessment ecologies have at their core dia-logue about what students and teachers know, how students and teachers judge language differently, so that students are also agents in the ecology, not simply objects to be measured. I realize that this statement may set up a troubling role for the teacher, the role of liberator or savior, but like Freire’s account, the writ-ing teacher in an antiracist writing assessment ecology simply does not have that power, cannot liberate her students. They must do that themselves (Freire, 1970, pp. 93-94).

Everyone has 24 hours in every day.

he central work of problem-posing for students in an antiracist writing assessment ecology is to assess and make judgments on language, to re-present colleagues’ texts to them from whatever subject position that student inhabits, and to do so self-consciously, calling attention to their own habitus, all of which leads to other questions that require more assessments by readers and writers.

Freire’s pedagogy is assessment at just about every level. He says that the dialogical teacher’s role is primarily to “re-present” the “thematic universe” un-covered by the team of researchers (which includes community members) as a problem (1970, p. 109), which the community (or students) must take on or use to pose their own problems.

ntiracist ecological writing assessment references a fuller purpose defined through a set of relationships that form settlement and create sustainable places that depend on local diversity for critical examination ofwriting and the hab-itus that produce that writing and readers’ expectations. I’ll explain this set of practices below through Freire’s problem-posing methods, a set of practices and priorities that I call problematizing one’s existential writing assessment situation.

labor can be measured by duration, quantity, or intensity, not by so-called quality, or against a single standard. This makes for a more equitable ecology, particularly for those who may come to it with discours-es or habitus other than the dominant ones.

If our students’ gifts of fortune are the racial habitus they bring with them, and some habitus provide some students an unfair inheritance in today’s academy, then we must use something more ethical to assess them by, especially in writing classrooms.

e must teach assessment to students, so that they can understand the nature of judgment and value, which in return makes them more critical and effective writers. To do this, he promotes what he calls “in-structive evaluation,” which “involves the student in the process of evaluation ... in all phases of the assessment of her work” (2002, p. 69). Instructive evaluation focuses attention on how judgments are made through the processes of read-ing student texts. In many important ways, I have tried to take up Huot’s call by engaging students in the full cycle of writing assessment through a cycle of rubric creating, drafting, judging, revising, and reflecting on the ways students read and make judgments on peer’s texts (Inoue, 2004). I call it “communi-ty-based assessment pedagogy,” and I still use a version of it today, which I show in Chapter 4. I extended this pedagogy by arguing for writing teachers to teach the rhetoric of writing assessment (Inoue, 2010), which offers students ways to understand the nature of valuing and judgment, which provides them with ways to write from more critical and informed stances

Why do more Blacks, Latinos, and multilingual students relatively speaking perform worse on writing assessments than their white peers in writing classrooms?

o put it bluntly, the argument is that sometimes students do not write well, and they should be evaluated accordingly, and sometimes those who do not write well will be Black or Latino or multilingual. Just because a writing assessment produces patterns of failure or low performance by students of color who partic-ipate in it doesn’t mean the assessment is racist. This is an important argument. I do not argue to let students slide academically because they happen to be by luck of birth a student of color.

few deny that most large-scale writing assessments are racist, or at least reveal different performance patterns that are detected when results are disaggregated by racial formation

I’m concerned with structural racism, the institutional kind, the kind that makes many students of color like me when I was younger believe that their failures in school were purely due to their own lacking in ability, desire, or work ethic.

all writing teachers need some kind of explicit language about writing assessment in order to create classroom writing assessments that do all the things we ask of them in writing courses, and have the ability to continually (re)theo-rize and practice them better.

I do not deny that race is not real, that there is no biological basis for it, but biology is not the only criterion for considering something as real, or important, or worth discussing and addressing in our assessments

he teachings of Mr. Muhammadstressed how history had been "whitened"—when white men had writtenhistory books, the black man simply had been left ou

At one-hour intervals at nightguards paced past every room. Each time I heard the approachingfootsteps, I jumped into bed and feigned sleep. Andas soon as the guard passed, I got back out of bed onto the floor areaof that light-glow, where I would read for another fifty-eight minutesuntil the guard approached again. That went on until three or four everymorning.

No university would askany student to devour literature as I did when this new world opened tome, of being able to read andunderstand

You would be astonished to know how worked upconvict debaters and audiences would get over subjects like "ShouldBabies Be Fed Milk?"

I spent twodays just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary's pages. I'd neverrealized so many words existed! I didn't knowwhichwords I needed to learn. Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying.In my slow,painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet everythingprinted on that first page, down to the punctuation marks.I believe it took me a day. Then, aloud, I read back, to myself, everything I'd written on the tablet. Over and over, aloud, to myself, Iread my own handwriting.

—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates andnuts—from her bag—

mamool

my new best friend

—once the crying of confusion stopped—

—by now we

—we

we

sacrament.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like asacrament.

They took the cookies.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, justlike my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. "Help,"said the flight agent. "Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this." I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly."Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-se-wee?"

This can still happen anywhere.

Not everything is lost

I distinguish racial habitus from Omi and Winant’s (1994) term, “racial formations,” which I use to refer to the actual people that populate schools and writing classrooms.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tree roots prevent soil from moving as rainwater rushes across it, and leaves and branches keep rainfall from slamming into unprotected hillsides or impervious surfaces like parking lots and streets. When rain batters those areas, it erodes soil and often collects a mix of toxins, carrying them into streams and rivers. With so many trees gone, millions more gallons of polluted stormwater will enter the Cedar Rapids watershed.

Soil drainage affects organic matter accumulation and preservation, and local vegetation types.

considered the corequisite movement as an incre-mental step toward eliminating funding for DE entirely, rather than an effort to reform the way DE is delivered.

corequisite movement devalues DE and fear of job loss among DE faculty

we did not hear about challenges with leadership buy-in at any institution.

describing these implementation challenges, stakeholders also described a range of strategies that helped (or would have helped) to avoid or address these challenges.

While the traditional ALP model required a three-credit-hour DE support, several colleges designed their ALP-like models to have one- or two-credit-hour supports. And while the traditional ALP model specified a mix of ten college-ready students and ten DE students in the college-level course, institutions occasionally adjusted these ratios to increase the overall course size

stitutions with ALP models adhered to the ALP-prescribed design for the most part, with the DE support structured as classroom instruction, mixed student populations in the college-level course, and reduced student-to-instructor ratios in the DE support.

Looking aheadIn future implementation study reports, we will use statewide sur-vey data to examine implementa-tion across all community colleges in the state. In addition, we will explore our RCT college models more deeply, describing contrasts in student experiences across and between models and the impacts of these corequisite models on student outcomes.A L PPaired course models

Box 1. Description of the Texas Corequisite Study The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, examines corequisites that pair an integrated reading and writing DE support with a college-level English course

Figure 1. Corequisite Models Versus Traditional Developmental Education

he ALP model required students who were not college-ready in writing to enroll simultaneously in a three credit-hour college-level writing course and a three credit-hour DE course, with the same instructor teaching both courses.1 The model mixed ten DE students with ten college-ready students in the college course. In the DE support, the group of ten DE students received an additional three hours of support with basic writing and reading skills that were aligned with work from the college-level course.

igorous research evidence on the effectiveness of corequisites is limited to the studies of the ALP model.

percentage points more likely than students in traditional DE course sequences to successfully complete a college-level course within one year, and corequisite students were 6 percentage points more likely to persist into a second year of college (Cho et al., 2012).

Students in corequisites skip one or more DE courses and move directly into a college-level course in the first semester with DE support provided alongside the college-level course (Figure 1).

Reformers counter that the opposition among practi-tioners stems largely from organizational inertia and individual concerns about jobs for DE instructors.

The Accelerated Stud-ies in Associates Program (ASAP) paired DE instructional reforms with enhanced advising and additional wrap-around supports (e.g., transit subsidies) to ensure students were adequately assisted

some institutions divided course-work into smaller modules and used adaptive instructional software to allow students to move through modules at different paces

hose involved in higher education could support underprepared students more broadly by implementing holistic and well-support-ed reforms that may include a data-based variation of the corequisite model but will also retain effective prerequisite remediation as an option (Chen, 2016).

The net effect may simply be to remove access to much needed remedial courses, to increase fail rates in col-lege-level courses, to lower standards in gateway cours-es, and to perhaps negatively affect graduation rates for underprepared students.

romotion of reforms such as corequisites have now admitted that these individual reforms are not likely to improve graduation rates,

The number of self- and circular-citations is a pervasive problem contributing to the perception that there is a consensus in the literature supporting corequisites as data-based

more in-depth and rigorous work needs to be conducted before one can be determined that the net effect of this reform is positive for most students .

After conducting a limited meta-analysis, including and expanding on the references Logue (2018) cited, I find that there are approximately four peer-reviewed published studies involving corequisite models, as defined by reme-dial students taking college-level courses with a form of support concurrently.

CCRC’s Belfield et al. (2016) paper, in combination with their 2012 and 2010 papers on ALP (Cho et al., 2012; Jenkins et al., 2010) has been cited numerous times in articles, papers, and presenta-tions

This math modification is also promoted in the CCRC book (Bailey et al., 2015) which outlined the holistic reform termed guided pathways, an approach designed to increase two-year completion .

The important part of this evolution is that the varia-tions of corequisites had not been researched at the time, and they became legitimatized through the concerted effort to promote reforms by CCA and others, especially the media (Barshay, 2018; Hanford, 2016; Scott-Clayton, 2012)

Then in 2015, six interest groups—ATD, AACC, Charles A. Dana Center, CCA, ECS, and JFF—created a paper entitled “Core Principles for Transforming Reme-diation within a Comprehensive Student Success Strate-gy: A Joint Statement,” which also pushed for the use of corequisites and the minimization of stand-alone tradi-tional prerequisite remediation.

CCA recommended that any “just in time” support would work better than traditional prerequisite remediation

CCA created several partnerships with state systems such as the Oklahoma State System of Higher Education (2016), Complete College Indiana, Complete College Georgia (2018), Complete College Arkansas, and Complete College Texa

The groups with the largest im-pact have been the Community College Research Center (CCRC) and its related organizations,1 Complete College America (CCA), the Education Commission of the States (ECS), Jobs for the Future (JFF), Achieving the Dream (ATD), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Lumina, Kresge, Dell, and the League for Innovation in the Com-munity College .

However, what boosted corequisites into the national education stage was the numerous influential and well-funded interest groups

In 2007, Dr. Peter Adams founded and directed the Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) (Adams, Gearhart, Miller, & Roberts, 2009). This original corequisite model involved students volunteering to take an upper-level re-medial writing course and its corresponding college-level gatekeeper course simultaneously, both from the same in-structor, with mostly full-time faculty, in a well-organized program of support

Some state leg-islatures and university systems have also recently begun requiring variations of corequisites in place of traditional remediation, thus entirely removing prerequisite remedial courses as options for students

lack of peer-reviewed studies and the number of limitations in these studies suggest this con-clusion might be premature

researchers and interest groups have been assiduously involved with studying, imple-menting, and promoting reforms designed to increase completion metrics

Summarize the text in your own words (note your impressions, reactions, and what you learned) in an outline or in a short paragraph Talk to someone, like a classmate, about the author’s ideas to check your comprehension Identify and reread difficult parts of the text Review your annotations Try to answer some of your own questions from your annotations that were raised while you were reading Define words on your vocabulary list and practice using them (to define words, try a learner’s dictionary, such as Merriam-Webster’s)

Annotating a text means that you actively engage with it by taking notes as you read, usually by marking the text in some way (underlining, highlighting, using symbols such as asterisks) as well as by writing down brief summaries, thoughts, or questions in the margins of the page.

Popular articles. Reading headings and introductory paragraphs carefully is crucial. In magazine articles, these features–along with the closing paragraphs–present the main concepts. Hard news articles in newspapers present the gist of the news story in the lead paragraph, while subsequent paragraphs present increasingly general bits of information.

Textbooks. These usually include summaries, glossaries, comprehension questions, and other study aids.

Questions to ask when previewing may include the following: What is the title of the text?  Does it give a clear indication of the text’s subject? Who is the author?  Is the author familiar to you?  Is any biographical information about the author included? If previewing a book, is there a summary on the back or inside the front of the book? What main idea emerges from the introductory paragraph?  From the concluding paragraph? Are there any organizational elements that stand out, such as section headings, numbering, bullet points, or other types of lists? Are there any editorial elements that stand out, such as words in italics, bold print, or in a large font size? Are there any visual elements that give a sense of the subject, such as photos or illustrations?

analyzing and understanding the overall composition of the writing as well as how the writing has achieved its effect on the audience. This level of understanding begins with thinking critically about the texts you are reading. In this case, “critically” does not mean that you are looking for what is wrong with a work (although during your critical process, you may well do that). Instead, thinking critically means approaching a work as if you were a critic or commentator whose job it is to analyze a text beyond its surface.

regardless of your field of study, honing your writing, reading, and critical-thinking skills will give you a more solid foundation for success, both academically and professionally.

We are not here to prove the skills we already have; this course is about stepping up.

argument

the scaffolding approach

These high costs present barriers to many students who need assigned class materials and are already struggling to pay tuition. In response to this reality, authors, through the help of a community of educators and not-for-profit publishers, are beginning to freely share their work in order to lower or eliminate the cost of class materials

It is free to you and anyone else who would like to use it. The key to this ability to freely use and re-use this material is something called Creative Commons. It is a license that the author places on his or her work that waives some of the protections of copyright and allows for the work to be shared and used in certain ways.

My father had wandered over all the hills andmesas around Laguna when he was a child,because the Indian School and the taunts of theother children did not sit well with him

Jackpile Mine

Paguate village

Blue Lake

Taos Pueblo

Taos National Forest

Indian School

ka’tsinas

Laguna

y family didn’t understand how dis-ruptive those calls could be. Neither did I, really. No one had ever left. We normally went through these events together. But I was no longer able to help fi gure out when the coast was clear, to investigate the fl ash-ing police lights. I always wondered, unnerved, just how close my family was to whatever prompted such a call. I was away. They were still there.

This process is not random but the consequence of historical patterns of exclusion and racism. Life in privileged communities means that children traverse safer streets, have access to good schools and interact with neigh-bors who can supply more than the proverbial cup of sugar. Life in distressed communities can mean learning to distinguish between fi recrackers and gunshots

In his 2010 study of Chicago youth from adolescence to young adulthood, the sociologist Patrick Sharkey, then at New York University and now at Princeton, shows how such violence disrupts learning in ways equivalent to missing two years of schooling.

We like to think that landing a coveted college spot

vending machines were stocked with Cheetos and Yoo-hoos, wel-come complements to the ham-and-cheese and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches I got from CVS; there are no corner stores or bodegas in Amherst.

Amherst felt a little colder

With the poet he could truly say,                          "Star of the North! while blazing day                          Pours round me its full tide of light,                          And hides thy pale but faithful ray,                          I, too, lie hid, and long for night."

The judge asked the slave if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed on him. George stood for a moment in silence, and then said, "As I cannot speak as I should wish, I will say nothing." "You may say what you please," said the judge. "You had a good master," continued he, "and still you were dissatisfied; you left your master and joined the negroes who were burning our houses and killing our wives." "As you have given me permission to speak," remarked George, "I will tell you why I joined the revolted negroes. I have heard my master read in the Declaration of Independence 'that all men are created free and equal,' and this caused me to inquire of myself why I was a slave. I also heard him talking with some of his visitors about the war with England, and he said, all wars and fightings for freedom were just and right. If so, in what am I wrong? The grievances of which your fathers complained, and which caused the Revolutionary War, were trifling in comparison with the wrongs and sufferings of those who were engaged in the late revolt. Your fathers were never slaves, ours are; your fathers were never bought and sold like cattle, never shut out from the light of knowledge and religion, never subjected to the lash of brutal task-masters. For the crime of having a dark skin, my people suffer the pangs of hunger, the infliction of stripes, and the ignominy of brutal servitude. We are kept in heathenish darkness by laws expressly enacted to make our instruction a criminal offence. What right has one man to the bones, sinews, blood, and nerves of another? Did not one God make us all? You say your fathers fought for freedom--so did we. You tell me that I am to be put to death for violating Page 225 the laws of the land. Did not the American revolutionists violate the laws when they struck for liberty? They were revolters, but their success made them patriots--we were revolters, and our failure makes us rebels. Had we succeeded, we would have been patriots too. Success makes all the difference. You make merry on the 4th of July; the thunder of cannon and ringing of bells announce it as the birthday of American independence. Yet while these cannons are roaring and bells ringing, one-sixth of the people of this land are in chains and slavery. You boast that this is the 'Land of the Free;' but a traditionary freedom will not save you. It will not do to praise your fathers and build their sepulchres. Worse for you that you have such an inheritance, if you spend it foolishly and are unable to appreciate its worth. Sad if the genius of a true humanity, beholding you with tearful eyes from the mount of vision, shall fold his wings in sorrowing pity, and repeat the strain, 'O land of Washington, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not; behold your house is left unto you desolate.' This is all I have to say; I have done." Nearly every one present was melted to tears; even the judge seemed taken by surprise at the intelligence of the young slave. But George was a slave, and an example must be made of him, and therefore he was sentenced. Being employed in the same house with Mary, the daughter of Clotel, George had become attached to her, and the young lovers fondly looked forward to the time when they should be husband and wife

e, too, could boast that his father was an American statesman, His name was George. His mother had been employed as a servant in one of the principal hotels in Washington, where members of Congress usually put up. After George's birth his mother was sold to a slave trader, and he to an agent of Mr. Green, the father of Horatio. George was as white as most white persons. No one would suppose that any African blood coursed through his veins. His hair was straight, soft, fine, and light; his eyes blue, nose prominent, lips thin, his head well formed, forehead high and prominent; and he was often taken for a free white person by those who did know him. This made his condition still more intolerable; for one so white seldom ever receives fair treatment at the hands of his fellow slaves; and the whites usually regard such slaves as persons who, if not often flogged, and otherwise ill treated, to remind them of their condition, would soon "forget" that they were slaves, and "think themselves as good as white folks."

    Thus died Clotel, the daughter of Thomas Jefferson, a president of the United States; a man distinguished as the author of the Declaration of American Independence, and one of the first statesmen of that country.         Had Clotel escaped from oppression in any other land, in the disguise in which she fled from the Mississippi to Richmond, and reached the United States, no honour within the gift of the American people would have been too good to have been heaped upon the heroic woman. But she was a slave, and therefore out of the pale of their sympathy. They have tears to shed over Greece and Poland; they have an abundance of sympathy for "poor Ireland;" they can furnish a ship of war to convey the Hungarian refugees from a Turkish prison to the "land of the free and home of the brave." They boast that America is the "cradle of liberty;" if it is, I fear they have rocked the child to death. The body of Clotel was picked up from the bank of the river, where it had been washed by the strong current, a hole dug in the sand, and there deposited, without either inquest being held over it, or religious service being performed. Such was the life and such the death of a woman whose virtues and goodness of heart would have done honour to one in a higher station of life, and who, if she had been born in any other land but that of slavery, would have been honoured and Page 219 loved.

Every day brought news of fresh outbreaks. Without scruple and without pity, the whites massacred all blacks found beyond their owners' plantations: the negroes, in return, set fire to houses, and put those to death who attempted to escape from the flames. Thus carnage was added to carnage, and the blood of the whites flowed to avenge the blood of the blacks. These were the ravages of slavery. No graves were dug for the negroes; their dead bodies became food for dogs and vultures, and their bones, partly calcined by the sun, remained scattered about, as if to mark the mournful fury of servitude and lust of power. When the slaves were subdued, except a few in the swamps, bloodhounds were put in this dismal place to hunt out the remaining revolters

 The evils consequent on slavery are not lessened by the incoming of one or two rays of light. If the slave only becomes aware of his condition, and conscious of the injustice under which he suffers, if he obtains but a faint idea of these things, he will seize the first opportunity to possess himself of what he conceives to belong to him. The infusion of Anglo-Saxon with African blood has created an insurrectionary feeling among the slaves of America hitherto unknown. Aware of their blood connection with their owners, these mulattoes labour under the sense of their personal and social injuries; and tolerate, if they do not encourage in themselves, low and vindictive passions. On the other hand, the slave owners are aware of their critical position, and are ever watchful, always fearing an outbreak among the slaves.         True, the Free States are equally bound with the Slave States to suppress any insurrectionary movement that may take place among the slaves. The Northern freemen are bound by their constitutional obligations to aid the slaveholder in keeping his slaves in their Page 212 chains. Yet there are, at the time we write, four millions of bond slaves in the United States. The insurrection to which we now refer was headed by a full-blooded negro, who had been born and brought up a slave. He had heard the twang of the driver's whip, and saw the warm blood streaming from the negro's body; he had witnessed the separation of parents and children, and was made aware, by too many proofs, that the slave could expect no justice at the hand of the slave owner. He went by the name of "Nat Turner."

And during the fortnight that I was in Vermont, with my teetotal relations, I was kept about as well corned as if I had been among my hot water friends in Tennessee."

But being assured that not a shadow of safety would attend her visit to a city in which she was well known, unless in some disguise, she again resumed men's apparel on leaving Cincinnati. This time she had more the appearance of an Italian or Spanish gentleman. In addition to the fine suit of black cloth, a splendid pair of dark false whiskers covered the sides of her face, while the curling moustache found its place upon the upper lip. From practice she had become accustomed to high-heeled boots, and could walk without creating any suspicion as regarded her sex.

If true greatness consists in doing good to mankind, then was Georgiana Carlton an ornament to human nature. Who can think of the broken hearts made whole, of sad and dejected countenances now beaming with contentment and joy, of the mother offering her free-born babe to heaven, and of the father whose cup of joy seems overflowing in the presence of his family, where none can molest or make him afraid.

ON the last day of November, 1620, on the confines of the Grand Bank of Newfoundland, lo! we behold one little solitary tempest-tost and weatherbeaten ship; it is all that can be seen on the length and breadth of the vast intervening solitudes, from the melancholy wilds of Labrador and New England's iron-bound shores, to the western coasts of Ireland and the rock-defended Hebrides, but one lonely ship greets the eye of angels or of men, on this great thoroughfare of nations in our age. Next in moral grandeur, was this ship, to the great discoverer's: Columbus found a continent; the May-flower brought the seed-wheat of states and empire. That is the May-flower, with its servants of the living God, their wives and little ones, hastening to lay the foundations of nations in the occidental lands of the setting-sun. Hear the voice of prayer to God for his protection, and the glorious music of praise, as it breaks into the wild tempest of the mighty deep, upon the ear of God. Here in this ship are great and good men. Justice, mercy, humanity, respect for the rights of all; each man honoured, as he was useful to himself and others; labour respected, law-abiding men, constitution-making and respecting men; men, whom no tyrant could conquer, or hardship overcome, with the high commission sealed by a Spirit divine, to establish Page 184 religious and political liberty for all. This ship had the embryo elements of all that is useful, great, and grand in Northern institutions; it was the great type of goodness and wisdom, illustrated in two and a quarter centuries gone by; it was the good genius of America.         But look far in the South-east, and you behold on the same day, in 1620, a low rakish ship hastening from the tropics, solitary and alone, to the New World. What is she? She is freighted with the elements of unmixed evil. Hark! hear those rattling chains, hear that cry of despair and wail of anguish, as they die away in the unpitying distance. Listen to those shocking oaths, the crack of that fleshcutting whip. Ah! it is the first cargo of slaves on their way to Jamestown, Virginia. Behold the Mayflower anchored at Plymouth Rock, the slave-ship in James River. Each a parent, one of the prosperous, labour-honouring, law-sustaining institutions of the North; the other the mother of slavery, idleness, lynch-law, ignorance, unpaid labour, poverty, and duelling, despotism, the ceaseless swing of the whip, and the peculiar institutions of the South. These ships are the representation of good and evil in the New World, even to our day. When shall one of those parallel lines come to an end?

We say much against European despotism; let us look to ourselves. That government is despotic where the rulers govern subjects by their own mere will--by decrees and laws emanating from their uncontrolled will, in the enactment and execution of which the ruled have no voice, and under which they have no right except at the will of the rulers. Despotism does not depend upon the number of the rulers, or the number of the subjects. It may have one ruler or many. Rome was a despotism under Nero; so she was under the triumvirate. Athens was a despotism under Thirty Tyrants; under her Four Hundred Tyrants; under her Three Thousand Tyrants. It has been generally observed that despotism increases in severity with the number of despots; the responsibility is more divided, and the claims more numerous. The triumvirs each demanded his victims. The smaller the number of subjects in proportion to the tyrants, the more cruel the oppression, because the less danger from rebellion. In this government, the free white citizens are the rulers--the sovereigns, as we delight to be called. All others are subjects. There are, perhaps, some sixteen or seventeen millions of sovereigns, and four millions of subjects.         "The rulers and the ruled are of all colours, from the clear white of the Caucasian tribes to the swarthy Ethiopian. The former, by courtesy, are all called white, the latter black. In this government the subject has no rights, social, political, or personal. He has no voice in the laws which govern him. He can hold no property. His very wife and children are not his. His labour is another's. He, and all that appertain to him, are the absolute property of his rulers. He is governed, bought, sold, punished, executed, by laws to which he never gave his assent, and by rulers whom he never chose. He is not a serf Page 180 merely, with half the rights of men like the subjects of despotic Russia; but a native slave, stripped of every right which God and nature gave him, and which the high spirit of our revolution declared inalienable--which he himself could not surrender, and which man could not take from him. Is he not then the subject of despotic sway?         "The slaves of Athens and Rome were free in comparison

n account given by a correspondent of one of the Southern newspapers, who happened to be a passenger in the same steamer in which the slaves escaped, and which we here give:-

  No country has produced so much heroism in so short a time, connected with escapes from peril and oppression, as has occurred in the United States among fugitive slaves, many of whom show great shrewdness in their endeavours to escape from this land of bondage

This, of course, would incur additional expense; and if they left the state, where had they better go? "Let's send them to Liberia," said Carlton. "Why should they go to Africa, any more than to the Free States or to Canada?" asked the wife. "They would be in their native land," he answered. "Is not this their native land? What right have we, more than the negro to the soil here, or to style ourselves native Americans? Indeed it is as much their homes as ours, and I have sometimes thought it was more theirs. The negro has cleared up the lands, built towns, and enriched the soil with his blood and tears; and in return, he is to be sent to a country of which he knows nothing. Who fought more bravely for American independence than the blacks? A Page 159 negro, by the name of Attucks, was the first that fell in Boston at the commencement of the revolutionary war; and, throughout the whole of the struggles for liberty in this country, the negroes have contributed their share.

They are happy, after all. The negro, situated as yours are, is not aware that he is deprived of any just rights." "Yes, yes," answered Georgiana: "you may place the slave where you please; you may dry up to your utmost the fountains of his feelings, the springs of his thought; you may yoke him to your labour, as an ox which liveth only to work, and worketh only to live; you may put him under any process which, without destroying his value as a slave, will debase and crush him as a rational being; you may do this, and the idea that he was born to be free will survive it all. It is allied to his hope of immortality; it is the ethereal part of his nature, which oppression cannot reach; it is a torch lit up in his soul by the hand of Deity, and never meant to be extinguished by the hand of man."         On reaching the drawing-room, they found Sam snuffing the candles, and looking as solemn and as dignified as if he had never sung a song or laughed in his life. "Will Miss Georgy have de supper got up now?" asked the negro. "Yes," she replied. "Well," remarked Carlton, "that beats anything I ever met with. Do you think that was Sam we heard singing?" "I am sure of it," was the answer. "I could not have believed that that fellow was capable of so much deception," continued Page 152 he. "Our system of slavery is one of deception; and Sam, you see, has only been a good scholar. However, he is as honest a fellow as you will find among the slave population here. If we would have them more honest, we should give them their liberty, and then the inducement to be dishonest would be gone. I have resolved that these creatures shall all be free." "Indeed!" exclaimed Carlton. "Yes, I shall let them all go free, and set an example to those about me." "I honour your judgment," said he. "But will the state permit them to remain?" "If not, they can go where they can live in freedom. I will not be unjust because the state is."

How prettily the negroes sing," remarked Carlton, as they were wending their way towards the place from whence the sound of the voices came. "Yes," replied Georgiana; "master Sam is there, I'll warrant you: he's always on hand when there's any singing or dancing. We must not let them see us, or they will stop singing." "Who makes their songs for them?" inquired the young man. "Oh, they make them up as they sing them; they are all impromptu songs." By this time they were near enough to hear distinctly every word; and, true enough, Sam's voice was heard above all others. At the conclusion of each song they all joined in a hearty laugh, with an expression of "Dats de song for me;" "Dems dems."

Every married woman in the far South looks upon her husband as unfaithful, and regards every quadroon servant as a rival. Clotel had been with her new mistress but a few days, when she was ordered to cut off her long hair. The negro, constitutionally, is fond of dress and outward appearance. He that has short, woolly hair, combs it and oils it to death. He that has long hair, would sooner have his teeth drawn than lose it. However painful it was to the quadroon, she was soon seen with her hair cut as short as any of the full-blooded negroes in the dwelling.         Even with her short hair, Clotel was handsome. Her life had been a secluded one, and though now nearly thirty years of age, she was still beautiful. At her short hair, the other servants laughed, "Miss Clo needn't strut round so big, she got short nappy Page 145 har well as I," said Nell, with a broad grin that showed her teeth. "She tinks she white, when she come here wid dat long har of hers," replied Mill. "Yes," continued Nell; "missus make her take down her wool so she no put it up to-day."

"Hear me, then," said the woman calming herself: "I will tell you why I sometimes weep. I was born in Germany, on the banks of the Rhine. Ten years ago my father came to this country, bringing with him my mother and myself. He was poor, and I, wishing to assist all I could, obtained a situation as nurse to a lady in this city. My father got employment as a labourer on the wharf, among the steamboats; but he was soon taken ill with the yellow fever, and died. My mother then got a situation for herself, while I remained with my first employer. When the hot season came on, my master, with his wife, left New Orleans until the hot season was over, and took me with them. They stopped at a town on the banks of the Mississippi river, and said they should remain there some weeks. One day they went out for a ride, and they had not been gone more than half an hour, when two men came into the room and told me that they had bought me, and that I was their slave. I was bound and taken to prison, and that night put on a steamboat and taken up the Yazoo river, and set to work on a farm. I was forced to take up with a negro, and by him had three children. A year since my master's daughter was married, and I was given to her. She came with her husband to this city, and I have ever since been hired out."         "Unhappy woman," whispered Althesa, "why did you not tell me this before?" "I was afraid," replied Salome, "for I was once severely flogged for telling a stranger that I was not born a slave." On Mr. Morton's return home, his wife communicated to him the story which the slave woman had told her an hour before, and begged that something might be done to rescue her from the situation she was then Page 141 in. In Louisiana as well as many others of the slave states, great obstacles are thrown in the way of persons who have been wrongfully reduced to slavery regaining their freedom. A person claiming to be free must prove his right to his liberty. This, it will be seen, throws the burden of proof upon the slave, who, in all probability, finds it out of his power to procure such evidence. And if any free person shall attempt to aid a freeman in regaining his freedom, he is compelled to enter into security in the sum of one thousand dollars, and if the person claiming to be free shall fail to establish such fact, the thousand dollars are forfeited to the state. This cruel and oppressive law has kept many a freeman from espousing the cause of persons unjustly held as slaves.

hat he is a doctor, and has use for them in his lectures. The doctor is connected with a small college. Look at his prospectus, where he invites students to attend, and that will explain the matter to you." Carlton turned to another column, and read the following:         "Some advantages of a peculiar character are connected with this institution, which it may be proper to point out. No place in the United States offers as great opportunities for the acquisition of anatomical knowledge. Subjects being obtained from among the coloured population in sufficie

t commenced the practice of his profession in New Orleans, was boarding with Crawford when Althesa was brought home. The young physician had been in New Orleans but a few weeks, and had seen very little of slavery. In his own mountain home he had been taught that the slaves of the Southern states were negroes, if not from the coast of Africa, the descendants of those who had been imported. He was unprepared to behold with composure a beautiful young white girl of fifteen in the degraded position of a chattel slave. The blood chilled in his young heart as he heard Crawford tell how, by bantering with the trader, he had bought her for two hundred dollars less than he first asked. His very looks showed that the slave girl had the deepest sympathy of his heart.

e kissed the hand she offered, and with a countenance almost as sad as her own, led her to a window in the recess shadowed by a luxuriant passion flower. It was the same seat where they had spent the first evening in this beautiful cottage, consecrated to their first loves. The same calm, clear moonlight looked in through the trellis. The vine then planted had now a luxuriant growth; and many a time had Horatio fondly twined its sacred blossoms with the glossy ringlets of her raven hair.

Well, this is a bad state of affairs indeed, and especially the condition of the poor whites," said Carlton. "You see," replied Snyder, "no white man is respectable in Page 106 these slave states who works for a living. No community can be prosperous, where honest labour is not honoured. No society can be rightly constituted, where the intellect is not fed. Whatever institution reflects discredit on industry, whatever institution forbids the general culture of the understanding, is palpably hostile to individual rights, and to social well-being. Slavery is the incubus that hangs over the Southern States." "Yes," interrupted Huckelby; "them's just my sentiments now, and no mistake. I think that, for the honour of our country, this slavery business should stop. I don't own any, no how, and I would not be an overseer if I wern't paid for it."

"Are there many poor whites in this district?" "Not here, but about thirty miles from here, in the Sand Hill district; they are as ignorant as horses. Why it was no longer than last week I was up there, and really you would not believe it, that people were so poor off. In New England, and, I may say, in all the free states, they have free schools, and everybody gets educated. Not so here. In Connecticut there is only one out of every five hundred above twenty-one years that can neither read nor write. Here there is one out of every eight that can neither read nor write. There is not a single newspaper taken in five of the counties in this state.

 "Well," said Joe, after the three white men were out of hearing, "Marser Snyder bin try hesef today." "Yes," replied Ned; "he want to show de strange gentman how good he can preach." "Dat's a new sermon he gib us to-day," said Sandy. "Dees white fokes is de very dibble," said Dick; "and all dey whole study is to try to fool de black people." "Didn't you like de sermon?" asked Uncle Simon. "No," answered four or five voices. "He rared and pitched enough," continued Uncle Simon.         Now Uncle Simon was himself a preacher, or at least he thought so, and was rather pleased than otherwise, when he heard others spoken of in a disparaging manner. "Uncle Simon can beat dat sermon all to

hich counteracts it, wrong. Whatever, in its proper tendency and general effect, produces, secures, or extends human welfare, is according to the will of God, and is good; and our duty is to favour and promote, according to our power, that which God favours and promotes by the general law of his providence

he society into which he was thrown on his arrival at Natchez was too brilliant for him not to be captivated by it; and, as might have been expected, he succeeded in captivating a plantation with seventy slaves, if not the heart of the lady to whom it belonged. Added to this, he became a popular preacher, had a large congregation with a snug salary.

John Wesley

  Nearly 4,000 slaves were collected from the plantations in the neighbourhood to witness this scene. Numerous speeches were made by the magistrates and ministers of religion to the large concourse of slaves, warning them, and telling them that the same fate awaited them, if they should prove rebellious to their owners. There are hundreds of negroes who run away and live in the woods. Some take refuge in the swamps, because they are less frequented by human beings.

WE shall now return to Natchez,

"You have beat me," said Smith, as soon as he saw the cards. Jerry, who was standing on top of the table, with the bank notes and silver dollars round his feet, was now ordered to descend from the table. "You will not forget that you belong to me," said Johnson, as the young slave was stepping from the table to a chair. "No, sir," replied the chattel. "Now go back to your bed, and be up in time to-morrow morning to brush my clothes and clean my boots, do you hear?" "Yes, sir," responded Jerry, as he wiped the tears from his eyes.

Thousands of dollars change hand during a passage from Louisville or St. Louis to New Orleans on a Mississippi steamer, and many men, and even ladies, are completely ruined.

e often bought some who were far advanced in years, and would always try to sell them for five or ten years younger than they actually were. Few persons can arrive at anything like the age of a negro, by mere observation, unless they are well acquainted with the race. Therefore the slavetrader very frequently carried out this deception with perfect impunity.

"The chastity of this girl is pure; she has never been from under her mother's care, she is a virtuous creature." "Thirteen." "Fourteen." "Fifteen." "Fifteen hundred dollars," cried the auctioneer, and the maiden was struck for that sum. This was a Southern auction, at which the bones, muscles, sinews, blood, and nerves of a young lady of sixteen were sold for five hundred dollars; her moral character for two hundred; her improved intellect for one hundred; her Page 64 Christianity for three hundred; and her chastity and virtue for four hundred dollars more. And this, too, in a city thronged with churches, whose tall spires look like so many signals pointing to heaven, and whose ministers preach that slavery is a God-ordained institution!

Clotel was the last, and, as was expected, commanded a higher price than any that had been offered for sale that day. The appearance of Clotel on the auction block created a deep sensation amongst the crowd. There she stood, with a complexion as white as most of those who were waiting with a wish to become her purchasers; her features as finely defined as any of her sex of pure Anglo-Saxon; her long black wavy hair done up in the neatest manner; her form tall and graceful, and her whole appearance indicating one superior to her Page 63 position. The auctioneer commenced by saying, that "Miss Clotel had been reserved for the last, because she was the most valuable. How much gentlemen? Real Albino, fit for a fancy girl for any one. She enjoys good health, and has a sweet temper.

Brothers and sisters were torn from each other; and mothers saw their children leave them for the last time on this earth

Farmers who make a business of raising slaves for the market were there; slave-traders and speculators were also numerously represented; and in the midst of this throng was one who felt a deeper interest in the result of the sale than any other of the bystanders; this was young Green

He soon promised to purchase Clotel, as speedily as it could be effected, and make her mistress of her own dwelling; and Currer looked forward with pride to the time when she should see her daughter emancipated and free.

Although the term "negro ball" is applied to most of these gatherings, yet a majority of the attendants are often whites. Nearly all the negro Page 61 parties in the cities and towns of the Southern States are made up of quadroon and mulatto girls, and white men. These are democratic gatherings, where gentlemen, shopkeepers, and their clerks, all appear upon terms of perfect equality.

Thirty-eight negroes will be offered for sale on Monday, November 10th, at twelve o'clock, being the entire stock of the late John Graves, Esq. The negroes are in good condition, some of them very prime; among them are several mechanics, able-bodied field hands, plough-boys, and women with children at the breast, and some of them very prolific in their generating qualities, affording a rare opportunity to any one who wishes to raise a strong and healthy lot of servants for their own use. Also several mulatto girls of rare personal qualities: two of them very superior. Any gentleman or lady Page 60 wishing to purchase, can take any of the above slaves on trial for a week, for which no charge will be made.

hat immorality and vice pervade the cities of the Southern States in a manner unknown in the cities and towns of the Northern States. Indeed most of the slave women have no higher aspiration than that of becoming the finely-dressed mistress of some white man. And at negro balls and parties, this class of women usually cut the greatest figure

Marriage is, indeed, the first and most important institution of human existence--the foundation of all civilisation and culture--the root of church and state. It is the most intimate covenant of heart formed among mankind; and for many persons the only relation in which they feel the true sentiments of humanity. It gives scope for every human virtue, since each of these is developed from the love and Page 58 confidence which here predominate. It unites all which ennobles and beautifies, life,--sympathy, kindness of will and deed, gratitude, devotion, and every delicate, intimate feeling. As the only asylum for true education, it is the first and last sanctuary of human culture. As husband and wife through each other become conscious of complete humanity, and every human feeling, and every human virtue; so children, at their first awakening in the fond covenant of love between parents, both of whom are tenderly concerned for the same object, find an image of complete humanity leagued in free love. The spirit of love which prevails between them acts with creative power upon the young mind, and awakens every germ of goodness within it. This invisible and incalculable influence of parental life acts more upon the child than all the efforts of education, whether by means of instruction, percept, or exhortation. If this be a true picture of the vast influence for good of the institution of marriage, what must be the moral degradation of that people to whom marriage is denied?

 In all the slave states, the law says:--"Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators and assigns, to all intents, constructions, and Page 56 purposes whatsoever." A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labour. He can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything, but what must belong to his master. The slave is entirely subject to the will of his master, who may correct and chastise him, though not with unusual rigour, or so as to maim and mutilate him, or expose him to the danger of loss of life, or to cause his death. The slave, to remain a slave, must be sensible that there is no appeal from his master.

WHY stands she near the auction stand,                          That girl so young and fair?

But I will give him papers of emancipation, properly authenticated by our statutes, for the sum of five hundred dollars (or £100) that will make him as free as any white person.

irst I made some flourishes with no meaning, and called a boy up, and said, 'Do you see that? Can you beat that writing?' Said he, 'That's not writing.' Well, I wanted to get so as to write my own name. I had got out of slavery with only one name. While escaping, I received the hospitality of a very good man, who had spared part of his name to me, and finally my name got pretty long, and I wanted to be able to write it. 'Now, what do you call that?' said the boy, looking at my flourishes. I said, 'Is not that William Wells Brown?' 'Give me the chalk,' says he, and he wrote out in large letters 'William Wells Brown,' and I marked up the fence for nearly a quarter of a mile, trying to copy, till I got so that I could write my name.

It was left there until between eight and nine o'clock, when a cart, which took up the trash from the streets, came along, and the body was thrown in, and in a few minutes more was covered over with dirt, which they were removing from the streets.

n their way down to New Orleans William had to prepare the old slaves for market. He was ordered to shave off the old men's whiskers, and to pluck out the grey hairs where they were not too numerous; where they were, he coloured them with a preparation of blacking with a blacking brush. After having gone through the blacking process, they looked ten or fifteen years younger.

    "SHALL tongues be mute when deeds are wrought                          Which well might shame extremest Hell?                          Shall freemen lack th' indignant thought?                          Shall Mercy's bosom cease to swell?                          Shall Honour bleed?--shall Truth succumb?                          Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?"--Whittier.

The great aim of the true friends of the slave should be to lay bare the institution, so that the gaze of the world may be upon it, and cause the wise, the prudent, and the pious to withdraw their support from it, and leave it to its own fate. It does the cause of emancipation but little good to cry out in tones of execration against the traders, the kidnappers, the hireling overseers, and brutal drivers, so long as nothing is said to fasten the guilt on those who move in a higher circle.

Twenty-five millions of whites have banded themselves in solemn conclave to keep four millions of blacks in their chains. In all grades of society are to be found men who either hold, buy, or sell slaves, from the statesmen and doctors of divinity, who can own their hundreds, down to the person who can purchase but one.

now there are nearly four million. In fifteen of the thirty-one States, Slavery is made lawful by the Constitution, which binds the several States into one confederacy.

        "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS."--Declaration of American Independence

THE DEATH OF CLOTEL. Page 218. [Frontispiece Image]

In his distinct style, Brown readily blends elements from this narrative as well as various anecdotes, poetry, folk songs and ditties, vignettes of slave life, and even newspaper accounts into the novel.

I also feel connected to the hopefulness Angela must have felt when she figured out ways to resist and survive.

1600, the year John translated into English and published A Geographical Historie of Africa, a book of racist ideas about Angela’s race. First written in 1526, and popular as late as the 19th century, its racist ideas apparently had to be true since they were written by an African Moor, Leo Africanus (who probably sought favor from the Italian court that had freed and converted him). “The Negroes likewise leade a beastly kinde of life, being utterly destitute of the use of reason, of dexteritie of wit, and of all artes,” Africanus wrote. “Yea they so behave themselves, as if they had continually lived in a forrest among wilde beasts.”

That that racism and anti-racism. That that America.

It is hardly coincidental that this nation’s first experiment in (wealthy, white male) democracy emerged alongside the first experiment with black enslavement (and Native assimilation), that the history of African America and American democracy are both rooted in 1619. It is hardly coincidental that both 400-year anniversaries are being marked this year, that John’s freedom begot Angela’s enslavement, that John climbed his elevated whiteness onto the head of Angela’s lowered blackness.

There is history in regular African Americans behind the scenes surviving the regularity of racist policies, ideas, abuse, and violence for 400 years. Angela is the woman of today who works in a low-wage health-care gig, moving from crisis to crisis and joy to joy, all the while raising her hopes for a better day, or not. She is still surviving John, brewing our hope.

So some folks chose a birthday, like African Americans choose a birthday—August 20, 1619—based on the first documented recognition of our arrival in Virginia. A different John, John Rolfe, married Pocahontas in 1614, and then produced African America’s birth certificate five years later, on this day.