World Anti-Slavery Convention. London 1840

by Geraldine Monk

The growing movement swelled to a
roaring yell as women worked as
tireless campaigners. Home Guard
sugar–quitters spitting out sweet–maimed
bloodstained cubes of bondage and
luxury bonbons. Outraged flyers.

For all that the dawn of universal
abolition was delayed an entire day as so
many men objected to the very presence of
women in attendance let alone the perishing
thought of letting them speak.

An irony that would not have been
lost on five times ‘owned’ and
poignantly named Mary Prince a slave
no stranger to the whims of one–way
no conferring
enforced
self–appointed
puff–up entitlement. Amen.