Page of the week: Submit your cool, crazy, and curious finds!

This week's page of the week is brought to you by our Memorial Day Review Challenge, which is focusing on completing pages from the Lefthanded Penmanship Contest of our "Disabled but not disheartened" campaign in honor of those who have served and sacrificed.

On twitter, Historian Adam Rothman asked for By the People volunteers to review a contest entry by Robert Pinn, wounded during service in the U.S. Colored Troops. On this page Pinn writes of his experiences as a free black man and as a soldier fighting for his personhood:

I was born in the town of

Massillon Stark County State of Ohio.

where I experianced all the disadvantages

peculiar to my proscribed race.

Being born to labor I was not premitted

to enjoy the blessings of a common School

education, It is hardly necessary

to say that very little can be expected

of me, So far as correct composition

is concerned.

In '61, when the whole of the Loyal North

was aroused by reason of the cowardly

assault upon Fort Sumter, I was very

Eager to become a Soldier, in order to

prove by my feeble efforts the black mans

wrights to untrammeled manhood. I

was denied admission to the ranks of

the loyalists, on acount of my color

not being of that kind which is considered

a standard in this country

(text copied from current transcription, still in need of review!)