To the editor:

Thanks to Mindie Paget for compiling the article “A deeper shade of history” (Journal-World, Feb. 22). I find it amazing that George Washington, who was born a slave in Virginia, given away as a wedding present, moved with his new owner to Platte County, Mo., crossed the Missouri River to freedom and enlisted in the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry, also fought in the first Civil War battles where (1) blacks fought against whites (Butler County, Mo., 1862), and (2) black and white troops fought together against the Confederates (Calvin Creek, Ark., 1863).

Washington, a former slave who was prevented from learning to read or write (he signed his “mark” with an “X”), might have been amazed if he knew that his influence continues. One of his great grandchildren became an anthropologist and continues to research Washington’s life. Today, Washington has great-great-grandchildren attending the University of Virginia, the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and Lawrence High School. We often wonder what this patriarch, who achieved the rank of corporal at Fort Leavenworth in 1865, might have accomplished had he been born a free man. We can only hope that he would have been as proud of us as we, his descendants, are of him.

Tommy Johnson,

Lawrence