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This petition illustrates how enslaved people used the rhetoric of the American Revolution to point out the colonies’ hypocrisy of demanding freedom and liberty, while themselves having slavery.

A letter written by John Quincy Adams to the 12th Congressional District regarding the use of the "Gag Rule" to prevent him from reading petitions by enslaved people on the floor of the House of Representatives. Adams argues that the Gag Rule is a violation of petitioners' rights, and to ignore this violation would endanger the rights of all Americans.

In this excerpt from his book, Walking with the Wind, John Lewis describes his involvement in the sit-ins in Nashville, Tenn., in the spring of 1960.