She quotes Harriet Tubman. Do you know her?
Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross c.
1822 – March 10, 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and, during the American Civil War, a Union spy. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and
subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy
enslaved family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and
safe houses known as the Underground
Railroad. She later helped abolitionist John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the
post-war era struggled for women's suffrage.
Born a slave in Dorchester
County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten and whipped by her various masters
as a child. Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate
slave owner threw a heavy metal weight intending to hit another slave and hit
her instead. The injury caused dizziness, pain, and spells of hypersomnia, which occurred
throughout her life. She was a devout Christian and experienced strange
visions and vivid dreams, which she ascribed to premonitions from God.
In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, then immediately
returned to Maryland to rescue her family. Slowly, one group at a time, she
brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of
other slaves to freedom. Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman (or
"Moses", as she was called) "never lost a passenger". Her
actions made slave owners anxious and angry, and they posted rewards for her
capture. When a far-reaching United States Fugitive Slave Law was passed in
1850, she helped guide fugitives further north into Canada, and helped newly
freed slaves find work.
When the US Civil War began, Tubman worked for the
Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The
first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid at
Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than seven hundred slaves.
After the war, she retired to the family home on property she had purchased in
1859 in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her
aging parents. She was active in the women's suffrage movement
until illness overtook her and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly
African-Americans that she had helped to establish years earlier. After she
died in 1913, she became an icon of American courage and freedom.
From Wikipedia.
But it's interesting to get other opinions, and see reactions to Viola's already famous speech:
