“Pleasants lay mortally wounded. He died two days later. No one in Virginia started an antislavery newspaper for general circulation in the two final decades of state-sanctioned slavery in Virginia. White opposition to slavery was effectively silenced.” This passage pulled from the novel Richmond’s Unhealed History was of interest to me because I had always wondered if there had been a public voice speaking up for the slaves in Virginia and this passage sort of answered my question. I feel like especially now days but also in the past, the media has a large influence on our thoughts and beliefs. After this reading it makes sense that silencing antislavery press was a major concern for the city of Richmond. They didn’t want the citizens to be influenced by the newspapers, particularly because slavery had been state-sanctioned, and 40 percent of the population was enslaved. The fact that reporters were risking their lives to write antislavery articles shows how complicit the newspapers were at this time and the systemic way that slavery survived. Because they were lacking other perspectives no one saw how wrong it was because it was just a part of their everyday lives. Without a voice against slavery, it became normalized.