If you have spent much time around children, especially quarrelling children, you may have observed disputes over who gets to explain what just happened. Here are some examples which I have witnessed.

• Children rushing toward me with their mouths full of words, each wanting to be the first to arrive at my feet and spill out the correct version of the story. And the fastest child wins.
• One child covering the mouth of another child to silence the other who is obviously speaking lies. And the toughest child wins.
• The well-spoken, using-a-gentle-voice child, explaining the right side of the story with a lawyer-like defense justifying whatever just happened. And the cleverest child wins.

I’m sure there are many variations of these premature attempts at censorship. They don’t bother us much, and most of the disputes are resolved without any problem. The more worrisome examples of censorship are much less innocent.

• The Italian dictator who used his experience as a newspaper editor and journalist to redefine truth, stifling the freedom of the press during his fascist reign.
• The murderous, Austrian-born German politician, and his minister of propaganda, who oversaw the use of newspapers, radio and even phone lines. And who stole and destroyed, or hid, thousands of paintings, drawings, sculptures, and books representing the culture of an undesired group of people.
• Present day social media giants who make decisions about what is or isn’t true, disallowing the sharing of ideas which they don’t like.
• The government officials in an Eastern nation who are destroying crosses, burning Bibles, and closing churches.
• Harsh and punishing southern plantation owners who abused the people who to them were chattel.

Our voices are valuable because they represent who we are. Before a people group is destroyed, their voices must first be taken away. Slave narratives, such as that of Frederick Douglass, amplified the voices of slaves and described the events they encountered in clear detail, thereby preserving, and empowering that voice.

Stenographers from the Field: Personal Stories to Emancipation

I shall never forget my first attempts to learn to spell. I was about thirteen years of age, when I nearly lost my life because I made an effort to gain this kind of knowledge. Josiah Henson

Learning to read and write helped American slaves on their journey. It moved them out from the most horrible of institutions, by giving them their voice. They were enabled to tell their side of the story. Those stories were shared, creating a sympathetic audience.

Josiah Henson’s life story was successful in this endeavor. Although his first autobiography required the help of Samuel Atkins Eliot, to whom Henson dictated his story, it’s impact was still very significant, in that it influenced the writing of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

As a young boy Henson attempted to learn to read, but his opportunity was stopped short. This story is included in his later book Uncle Tom’s Story of His Life: An Autobiography of Josiah Henson (1876).

Henson met another slave boy, William, who had been assigned the task of transporting his master’s children to and from school. This lad had learned to read while listening to the children discuss their daily lessons with their father, as he drove their wagon. When he learned that William could read, he arranged to be taught by him. William instructed him to buy a Webster’s spelling-book. So, Henson gathered cull apples, that had fallen to the ground in his master’s orchard, and he sold them to raise the money for the book which he bought and kept hidden under his hat.

The next day, he was attempting to harness his master’s horse, but the horse jolted, and he had to run to catch it. During the scuffle, his hat fell off, and the reading lesson book was exposed. I’ll let him tell you the rest of the story.

 After I had harnessed the horse my master exclaimed, “What’s that?” “A spelling-book.” “Whose is it?” “Mine.” “Where did you get it?” “Bought it, sir, when I went to market.” “How much was it?” “Eleven cents.” “Where did you get the money?” “I sold some apples out of our orchard.” “Our orchard!” he exclaimed, in a passion. “I’ll teach you to get apples from our orchard for such a vile purpose, so you’ll remember it. Give me that book.”

I stooped to pick it up, and as I saw his big cane coming down. I dodged. “Pick up that book,” he cried, using an awful oath. At last I was obliged to do it, when he beat me across the head and back till my eyes were swollen and I became unconscious. My poor mother found me in this state, and it was some time before I was able to be about my work again.

When my master saw me after I recovered, he said, sneeringly, “So you want to be a fine gentleman? Remember if you meddle with a book again, I’ll knock your brains out.” The wonder to me is, why I have any brains left. I shall carry to my grave a scar my master made that day on my head. I did not open a book again till after I was forty-two years of age and out of the land of slavery.

The dedication of men and women, like Fisher, Douglass, and Henson, shown through their true-life records, must certainly be respected. They have preserved this shameful bit of history, and the echoing stories of the atrocities they faced will continue to guard against similar cruelties. Their words have been preserved in libraries and online, and they are still being heard today. Through them we can recognize the importance of having a voice, and the dangers that people groups encounter when their voices are lost. We must work to preserve the art of reading and writing among our citizenry, or we will be no better off than they were.

Ain’t I a Woman 

by Sojourner Truth (former slave, abolitionist, and suffragist), 1851

That man over there say
a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
and to have the best place everywhere.

Nobody ever helped me into carriages
or over mud puddles
or gives me a best place…

And ain’t I a woman?

Look at me
Look at my arm!
I have plowed and planted
and gathered into barns
and no man could head me…

And ain’t I a woman?

I could work as much
and eat as much as a man —
when I could get to it —
and bear the lash as well

And ain’t I a woman?

I have born 13 children
and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother’s grief
none but Jesus heard me…

And ain’t I a woman?

That little man in black there say
a woman can’t have as much rights as a man
‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman
Where did your Christ come from?
From God and a woman!

Man had nothing to do with him!
If the first woman God ever made
was strong enough to turn the world
upside down, all alone
together women ought to be able to turn it
right-side up again.

Coming next: Chapter Five — The Irish Mom who gave her son a Voice

from Dyslexic no More: Saved by the ABC’s