How Did Ruth Buy Her Own Freedom: A Modern Moral Story

Treating someone as disposable because they can’t produce, earn, or “add value” is the root of both old slavery and many modern injustices.

Ruth’s story was an eight-year nightmare. Sold as a child to a Virginia tobacco plantation, she had worked eighteen hours a day. Her hands were twisted, her nights filled with bloody coughing fits, and—worst of all—she had dug the graves of her three small children with her own hands. They had died of malnutrition.

Even the other slaves avoided her. “That one’s got one foot in the grave,” they whispered.

But while everyone saw a broken woman waiting to die, something extraordinary was burning behind those seemingly lifeless eyes.