Letter to the Editor

I just sent this off to the Washington Post:

The July 24th Kids Post “Monumental Collectables” ought to be applauded for its engagement of history and variety of historical notables. It’s unfortunate; however, that Ms. Bethune’s profile contains a monumental blunder: “Mary McLeod Bethune was born to freed slaves in 1875.” How inappropriate to call someone’s parents who used to be a slave-- a slave-- given the blood-stained measures to attain freedom. This is a gross oversight whose implications are rather sobering about the state of progress at an elite newspaper. Even if the notions of freedom and bondage are murky for adults, it should at least—momentarily—be clear for young people what a contradiction is. Maybe, this wasn’t a blunder, yet a reminder that for people of color freed or enslaved, one can never escape being thought of as a slave by those who take freedom for granted.

Abdul Ali
Howard University