Regina Mason spreads awareness on the empowerment of these stories.

Understanding multiple perspectives comes from more than just a textbook. With this goal in mind, history professors Courtney Goen and Patrick McCarter collaborated with several Los Medanos College programs to produce an event to share stories from the marginalized voices which shaped America. 

From what started off as a pipe dream, Goen collaborated with McCarter and the history department to put together a panel discussion on Oct. 6 to increase recognition and understanding of enslavement narratives. In collaboration with the Office of Equity and Inclusion, the Honors program and the Umoja scholars, they brought guest speaker Regina Mason to share her story, followed by a panel discussion and book signing of the autobiography, “The Life of William Grimes.”

Written as a fugitive slave, Grimes’ autobiography was first published in 1825 capturing his raw experience from a slave to a free man and the injustice acts of slavery. 

The original book detailed his journey from being owned by 10 masters to later escaping through the Underground Railroad from Georgia, to New York and finally to New Haven, Connecticut. He lost all his property when his master forced him to buy his freedom or risk being returned to slavery. Despite his small success, he had to give up the life he was building. 

From discovering her great, great, great grandfather’s narrative, which was buried and out of print, Mason was…