Someone Knows My Name

The story returns to London, now in the year 1803. Aminata describes the physical features and personalities of the individual abolitionists, and is annoyed that they have disturbed her. They ask her to speak against the slave trade, but she says she cannot speak against it without also condemning slavery. The abolitionists argue that they cannot speak about abolition, as it will unite all men of property in Parliament. John Clarkson is the white man who gives her lodging and the only Englishman she has journeyed with. Though he defends her, he has little standing among the rest. Aminata doubts the abolitionists have the best intentions. She believes her story is the only chance to share the truth:

“The abolitionists may well call me their equal, but their lips do not yet say my name and their ears do not yet hear my story. Not the way I want to tell it. But if I have long loved the written word, and come to see it in the power of the sleeping lion. This is my name. This is who I am. This is how I got here. In the absence of an