Dear Celia,

I write to your memory as I reflect upon an unsettling idea -- that our lives are so different, yet in some ways, so very much alike. While my trial ended with an injustice far less tragic than your own, the one hundred year gap that separates us saw less change than one might have predicted. You, as a female slave assaulted by your master, were denied your womanhood by the "justice" system of the United States. And I, as a young black career woman assaulted by a powerful black man, found myself in a battle between my womanhood and my race in the face of that same system.

Race, Celia, was your murderer. The law decreed that because you were black, you were not a woman. And because you were not a woman, you were not raped. And because you were not raped, your actions could not have been in self-defense.

It pains me to tell you that race was likewise my adversary. My assaulter exploited the history of the African American people in order to frame me, simply put, as a liar. Though he knew full well of the countless women like you who were sexually abused by their masters and employers, he conveniently seemed to forget this fact in the courtroom. He did remember, however, certain images of men hanging lifelessly from tree boughs. Many of these men had been unjustly accused of raping white women, and my assaulter chose to portray himself as such. Yet I am not a white woman. I am a black woman, with a history as tragic and haunting as any black man's. This you know perhaps better than anyone else.

In both of our circumstances our roles as women were overshadowed by race. I wonder, Celia, when will the black woman be able to embrace her womanhood in every sense of the word? We have been doubly burdened, facing the obstacles of being a woman while also facing the obstacles of being black. Can the two ever be reconciled? Or must we always be at war with ourselves, left with no choice but to be one or the other?

With sympathy and understanding,

Anita