By the terms of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in June of last year legalizing the practice of destitute families selling their children, hoping they’d have a better life, or of rich families taking a famous downer as a trophy to impress their friends, I have no legal status if granted freedom. I would be “a non-person and vulnerable as a piece of furniture abandoned on a sidewalk,” as Justice William O. Washington said in his blistering dissent when the court announced its decision.

Spartak Jones, 16, the first legal slave since the Civil War
America’s top gymnast, handsome, poor, kidnapped and sold, contemplating his future
San Francisco in the year 2115
The Chronicles of Spartak—Rising Son, a novel

Steven A. Coulter