Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth were slaves by birth, freedom fighters by temperament.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the transformative journey from being enslaved to becoming advocates for freedom.
Nancy Gibbs' quote emphasizes the deep resilience and bravery of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, who, despite their origins as slaves, emerged as powerful figures in the fight for freedom. Their innate spirit and determination to challenge oppression define them not just by their birth circumstances but by their unwavering commitment to liberation and justice.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, referencing this quote can inspire activists to continue the fight for equality.
Americans sometimes ask what the government does and where their tax money goes. Among other things, it pays for all kinds of invisible but essential safety nets and life belts and guardrails that are useless right up until the day they are priceless.
Most professional women I know - myself included - long since gave up looking for a rulebook or a roadmap; we make it up as we go along. Every day presents a new choice, a new challenge, which makes long-term career planning seem like an especially abstract exercise.
Virtues, like viruses, have their seasons of contagion. When catastrophe strikes, generosity spikes like a fever. Courage spreads in the face of tyranny.
The battles after the wars are over can be the toughest; there's no longer the public interest that accompanies, for good and for ill, the start of combat.
Girls grow up scarred by caution and enter adulthood eager to shake free of their parents' worst nightmares. They still know to be wary of strangers. What they don't know is whether they have more to fear from their friends.
All our efforts to guard and guide our children may just get in the way of the one thing they need most from us: to be deeply loved yet left alone so they can try a new skill, new slang, new style, new flip-flops. So they can trip a few times, make mistakes, cross them out, try again, with no one keeping score.
Courage and compassion are two sides of the same coin. Compassion without courage is not genuine. You may have a compassionate thought or impulse, but if you donβt do or say anything, itβs not real compassion.
I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.
There is no need to give in to the compromise that totalitarian regimes always count on.
This is how a man looks when he's deciding that the risk of death is better than the risk of change.
Courage is the most important attribute of a lawyer. It is more important than competence or vision. It can never be an elective in any law school. It can never be de-limited, dated or outworn, and it should pervade the heart, the halls of justice and the chambers of the mind.
I can write about my culture and religion because I am a product of both. Even when I'm accused of giving ammunition to the Islamophobic right, in the struggle between 'community' and 'women,' I always choose the women.
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