people with distinct histories

This is fascinating especially on the same day that the senator from Arkansas ignites a firestorm on social media as he tries to eliminate the 1619 Project (that won Pulitzer by the way) from school curricula, claiming that slavery was a "necessary evil". 

Two words: whitewashing history.

Omar Ibn Said was 37 years old when he was taken from his West African home and transported to Charleston, South Carolina, as a slave in the 1800s. Now, his one-of-a-kind autobiographical manuscript has been translated from its original Arabic and housed at the Library of Congress, where it “annihilates” the conventional narrative of African slaves as uneducated and uncultured. His literacy and culture completely goes against, abolishes, one might say annihilates, the narrative that slaves were not capable of culture. In fact, they were persons with distinct histories, abilities, culture, and background.

via {pbs}