It was in the newspaper back in the late 1950’s, at 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 people. 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 …