This week we get away from the Creative Commons back to the public domain.
Almost all literature published after 1923 remains under Mickey Mouse Law. The consequence of this is that people have little access to the past century of their history. The documents are often locked away, and with them the truth–or at least the ability to find a truth. Perhaps much of the reason no one takes the erosion of their freedoms too seriously is that they have little memory of how bad things were before now and how hard people struggled to get here.
So this week we serve up a reminder from before the Mickey Mouse version of history became official, about slavery, racism and labor courtesy of Solomon Northup’s book, Twelve Years a Slave. Sure, you could watch the movie that’s been recently adapted from it, but then you could also watch the Disney version of The Little Mermaid, too.
Download EPUB here.
Download PDF from the James Birney Collection of Anti-Slavery Pamphlets.
