Carma Hassan and Phil Gast, CNN , Author at New York Amsterdam News

Delaware Division of Historial and Cultural Affairs Burris wrote a letter while he was jailed in Dover, Delaware. Eventually, the letter was published in The Liberator, a famous abolitionist newspaper of the day. Burris never took his freedom for granted, writing that "the lowest condition in life, with freedom attending it, is better than the most exalted station under the restricts of slavery." (170960)

Righting a wrong: Delaware pardons man who guided slaves to freedom

by Carma Hassan and Phil Gast, CNN November 3, 2015October 20, 2021

More than a century before the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his famous open letter from the Birmingham jail, another incarcerated champion of civil disobedience penned a powerful missive against racial injustice.