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Day 21: Ending Slavery

Following are a couple quotes I came across today in Ending Slavery by Kevin Bales.

"Lloyd Garrison was one of the most outspoken of the early abolitionists, and his colleagues urged him not to upset so many people. One said to him, 'Do try to moderate your indignation, and keep more cool; why, you are all on fire!' Garrison replied, 'I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice about me to melt.'" (Bales, 22)

"And hear the words of Salma mint Saloum,who escaped from slavery in the late 1990s:

'The first time I tried to escape ... they bound my wrists and ankles and tied me to a date tree in the middle of the family compound and left me there for a week. He cut my wrists with a razor, so that I bled terribly. I still have scars on my arms.'

The ugliness of slavery has not really changed in thousands of years, but the light of freedom grows stronger. Listen to Salma today:

'To work, and to learn things, to go to school, ... to talk with people I choose to talk to: these things are liberty to me. To have the liberty to discuss with people, to be free to go where I want, to eat what I want, to sleep where I want. Before, I didn't have that. Really, seriously, before, I didn't have that.' (Bales, 230)

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