Dear George,

The urge to "Launder" history is more lethal then the possibility of offending .

"Huckleberry Finn," "To Kill A Mockingbird, and all other such genre should be seen as teaching tools and the opportunity to teach (as in leading to the light). I think this was Frederick Douglass' thinking when he he said "we have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future."

Harper and others wrote about the times as they existed, and to pretend this, indeed offensive, terminology did not exist only adds to other his - story inaccuracies.

I never want to be condemned to relive that past and therefore, as cautioned by Santayana, feel compelled to remember it, whether through what my grandparents remembered or from history, literature, art or music.

I own the video and have sat through several showings with my grandchildnen, talking them through the experience. It is one of their favorite films as a result of the understanding gleaned from it.

Muriel Wiggins (electronic mail, August 6, 2001).