Black Horse, White Rider

As a girl, daughter of a stern New York City clergyman, Elizabeth never considered the rights she may have had as a person. When she married and moved to a rice plantation on the coast of Georgia, the reality of her own situation became entangled with the rights of all human beings, black or white. Life can bring all our lenses into focus. The first lens began to focus when she met the enmity of her future in-law, the indomitable Aunt Mattie, but it was not until she reached the rice island that the other lenses began to bring in the sharper picture. Her place in the reality of the early and mid-1800s is made abundantly clear by her husband and by her father. The solid bone of her spine stiffened with the inequities. A headstrong young girl turned into a fighting woman, bent on bringing down slavery and exposing Clay. Elizabeth became an abolitionist and a fighter for fairness--for herself and for all who are dealt fewer cards than a full hand.