“I love that the Massachusetts courts had the integrity of purpose to take her question seriously.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, the state’s first Black governor, regarding the installment of a statue of Bett, an enslaved woman who went to court to win her freedom more than 80 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. The statue was unveiled on Sunday, Aug. 21, the same day, just 241 years prior, that a jury agreed with the attorneys and freed Bett, who later changed her name to Elizabeth Freeman. (Associated Press — Aug. 21, 2022)