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Read these works side by side:
On Civil Disobedience
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr.
Apology, Plato
On Education and Freedom
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (chapters 6 and 7), Frederick Douglass
“Allegory of the Cave” (in Republic), Plato
On Liberty and the American Revolution
“His Excellency, General Washington”, Phillis Wheatley
Wheatley’s letter exchange with George Washington, available at the National Archive online.
On Slavery and Natural Rights
Second Treatise of Government, John Locke
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Olaudah Equiano
On the surface, we were incompatible in so many ways. I am a Black professor of sociology, conservative theologically but more progressive politically than the mothers I was with. Our life experiences could not have been more opposed, and I am certain our experiences of race in America were immeasurably different. But a year later, after our family had moved across the country, one of the mothers
This story is from Common Good issue 09.