After suing for her freedom in court, Elizabeth Freeman (“Mum Bett”) found secure employment with the family of her lawyer, Theodore Sedgwick. A Sedgwick son later wrote: “If there could be a practical refutation of the imagined superiority of our race to hers, the life and character of this woman would afford that refutation. … She had, when occasion required it, an air of command which conferred a degree of dignity.” Massachusetts Historical Society.