My dad was born in London. My grandparents were English and they became citizens. Their British outlook on life didn't match my mother's Brooklyn Irish Catholic ways or what I had learned from living in France with my family as a girl. Growing up, I watched generational and cultural clashes at holiday meals and saw how grown-ups believed their opinions were right.

Reading became an escape from conflicts at home and a way to make sense of life beyond our house. Decades later, my need to know made me wonder what life was like for Frederick and Anna Douglass's family at the dinner table in Rochester in the 1850s.

During the pandemic, I had time to look into the greater abolitionist circle that the Douglass family was a part of. Pulling together what I learned from scholarly texts and biographies, led me to write ALL RIGHTS FOR ALL: Working for Justice.