Faces At The Bottom Of The Well, By Derrick Bell

For a very long time, slavery has been an accepted element in the human society and such an important factor in the economic development that the interest in the subject seems only natural. There is plenty of proof that condemns what happened in the past. For most Americans, this epoch of the past is an almost tangible object, something with deep roots in the popular culture and constantly nourished by movies and books.
In the book entitled Faces at the bottom of the well, Derrick Bell says that: “Black people are the magical faces at the bottom of society’s well. Even the poorest whites, those who must live their lives only a few levels above, gain their self-esteem by gazing down on us. Surely, they must know that their deliverance depends
For example, Harriet Tubman was never taught to read or write. After she escaped to Canada, in 1855, she said: “I grew up neglected like a weed, ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it. Then I was not happy or contented; every time I saw a white man I was afraid of being carried away”.(Sawyer, 2010 – pp. 120)
Frederick Douglass was one of the most appreciated abolitionists. He grew up a slave, not far from the place Harriet Tubman was born. After managing to escape to Massachusetts, he became a powerful leader of the abolitionists. He established in New York, Rochester, and was a great speaker, admired by both whites and blacks. One of his speeches in Ithaca, New York, attacked the Fugitive Slave Act, condemning the fact that those caught didn’t even have the right to a jury and a righteous judgment: “A man may not throw the noose of a rope over the horns of an ox without having his right to do so submitted to a jury; but he may seize, bind and chain a man - a being whose value is beyond all computation, and doom him to life-long bondage by a summary process.”(Malaspina, 2009 - pp. 45). He would later become one of Harriet’s admirers.