Send Salt to Your Enemy

By July 4, 1827, African-American slavery was illegal in the state of New York. Nevertheless, the Dumonts sold Peter, Sojourner Truth's son, to the Gedney family who sold Peter to another family that took Peter to Alabama.

Peter's sale was illegal. New York law prohibited blacks being sold or sent out of state to circumvent their being freed within the state. Sojourner Truth, who was named Isabella at the time, confronted Mrs. Dumont. "Mrs. Dumont replied, "A fine fuss to make about a little nigger!...A pity 'tis, the niggers are not all in Guinea!"

Isabella insisted, "I'll have my child again."

"How can you get him?" asked Mrs. Dumont. "And what have you to support him with, if you could? Have you any money?"

"No," replied Isabella. "I have no money, but God has enough." (Sojourner Truth Slave, Prophet, Legend by Carleton Mabee with Susan Mabee Newhouse.)

God helped Isabella/Sojourner Truth to free Peter by connecting with Quakers and lawyers like Herman M. Romeyn, Charles H. Ruggles and A. Bruyn Hasbrouck, who had served a term in Congress.

God also helped another New Yorker to connect with help to secure freedom. God sent Chen Guangcheng, a blind lawyer, some friends to help him flee from house arrest in China in April 2012 and to continue the human rights activism he was doing in China into the United States. Guangcheng played a key role in exposing forced abortions and forced sterilizations practiced in China as part of China's One-Child Policy. Guangcheng now lives in New York and travels out of state.

On Tuesday he testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee On Foreign Affairs about his family's persecution in China and other ongoing human rights abuses in China. Guangcheng gave Congress a list of 130,000 Chinese officials involved in forced abortions and forced sterilizations.

Guangcheng's nephew, Chen Kegui, has been in jail after using knives to fend off local officials who burst into Kegui's home after Guangcheng's escape.

A few months ago Guangcheng received the 2012 Tom Lantos Human Rights Prize, named after a deceased California congressman who was the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the U.S. Congress, according to a January 29, 2013, Reuters article entitled "Blind dissident urges global pressure on China over rights" by Paul Eckert. The article says that the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice has given previous annual awards to the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, Holocaust survivor and activist Elie Wiesel and Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandan hotel manager who hid and protected more than 1,200 refugees during Rwanda's genocide.

Guangcheng said regarding US negotiations with China in translated remarks read in English by actor and Tibet advocate Richard Gere, "There should be no compromise, even if there are large business interests at stake - dignity, freedom and justice are more important" (January 29, 2013,  Reuters article entitled "Blind dissident urges global pressure on China over rights" by Paul Eckert.)

"Porque vosotros, hermanos, a libertad fuisteis llamados; solamente que no useis la libertad como ocasion para la carne, sino servios por amor los unos a los otros," dice Biblia Bilingue Version Reina-Valera 1960. The Bilingual Bible New King James Version says, "For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another."

When Sojourner Truth's son was freed, she did not use her liberty as an opportunity to nurture her flesh in isolation. Instead she spoke to many for the liberty of African Americans and women. Likewise when Chen Guangcheng was freed from China, he did not nurture his flesh in isolation in New York. Instead he has been speaking out for the freedom of his family, the unborn and all Chinese people.

Freedom for the maximum number of people also requires interaction with enemies. A Japanese Proverb says, "Send salt to your enemy."

Japanese Americans and other Asian Americans were forced into detention during World War II. The fight for Japanese-American/Asian-American justice took from the 1940s until 1988 when Congress passed and former President Ronald Reagan signed legislation which apologized for the internment and said that the government's actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership." The US government eventually dispersed more than $1.6 billion in reparations to Asian Americans interned and their heirs. Each citizen who had been interned was awarded $20,000.