It was in the newspaper back in the mid-1950's, during the height of the civil rights movement. An unforgettable picture, which captured not only the emotion of one man, but the deep sense of freedom and joy and release and affirmation of a whole race. A black man, who must have been over 100 years old, was being carried on the shoulders of a group of young men. They were taking him up the steps of a courthouse in a Southern town to register to vote. The caption beneath the picture said he was born a slave.

To a marked degree he had remained a slave, even after the Emancipation Proclamation. Unable to vote, subjected to the rigid discriminatory demands and tests of others, he was kept in subjection. But now he was free, and the look on his face showed his joy. He was going to express his …