" Progress in America does not usually begin at the top and among the few, but from the bottom and among the many. It comes when the whispered hopes of those outside the mainstream rise in volume to reach the ears and hearts and minds of the powerful. Words attributed long afterward to Sojourner Truth, who spoke to a Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851, put the struggles of the day well: "I think twixt the negroes of the South and the women of the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon." And those voices carry the farthest when they call for fairness, not favors; for simple justice, not undue advantage. "

― Jon Meacham , The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels