Betty in Forma Pauperis
"There lived....a people who had the moral courage to stand up for their rights and thereby they injected a new meaning into the veins of history and of civilization." ---------Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1835 Hanover County, Virginia, a woman simply named Betty filed suit in forma pauperis to fight for her and her children's liberties. In a world where Betty had no rights under the bondage of slavery, the court abstract for Betty's suit presented a woman's fight to keep her family together. What initially drew my eye to this suit was that somehow my Thurman family was involved Betty's battle. I feared digging further into the suit and learning something about my Thurman that I really didn't want to know. And yet, I couldn't get Betty and her brave heart out of my mind. I had to know Betty's story and the fate of her children. According to the official court record , Betty was the property of William Gooch, a white, land...