Richmond was the city in which Patrick Henry, the founding father known as the “lion of liberty,” said, “I will not, I cannot, justify owning slaves,” but who never freed any of the human beings under his control. Richmond was where he launched the phrase “Give me liberty or give me death!” in an impassioned speech in 1775, while never offering liberty to the people he enslaved. Liberty was apparently only for me, but not for thee.
