We have come together today in order to hold the case of Josua Joseph, my client, born 35 years ago in a small village in Ghana, as the second son of a poor farmer. Ghana, at that time in English hands, was oppressed by its colonial masters and suffered a lot under their rulership. One day, my client Josua Joseph, young and strong, was sold to the English by the chief of his African tribe and transported to Alabama under the worst conditions you can imagine.
Crowded together with hundreds of other slaves under deck, put in chains, almost starving to death on his voyage to America, he arrived there more dead than alive.

But he had only little time to recover, because he was almost immediately taken to a slave- market, where his present owner bought him after he had haggled about him with three other men. It is hardly imaginable what his life was like on his master's cotton plantation: it was hell on earth. Not only did he have to work from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. with only one break of half an hour, but he had to stand temperatures of over 40 degrees Centigrade. Day after day he bent his back over the cotton bushes, his fingers were bleeding, the sun burnt his skin, thirst and hunger were almost unbearable.
But when he fell on his knees, because he was no longer able to stand upright, his master kicked him into the stomach or whipped him. The whip was used for anything: for so-called laziness, impoliteness ... - it was an instrument of arbitrariness. Look at the scars on my client's back and you will realize what hell he had to go through.
In his great misery he saw no other escape than to flee from his master - and he really succeeded. As he had heard about my efforts in the fight for the abolition of slavery, one day, he knocked at my door and begged me to help him.

And here we are and ask you: How can a behaviour be justified when some men consider themselves superior to other human beings? How can they reconcile it with their conscience and their Christian belief to torture other people, when God says: ``Love your neighbour in the same way as you love yourself''? How can they be regarded as chattel property like chairs or clothes? They belong to the human race, they have the same feelings as all of us, for they are made after the image of the Creator.
In our Constitution there are fixed the fundamental human rights, based on freedom for everybody and equality among all human beings. ``All men are created equal'' must be the basis of your considerations. And as equality leads to freedom, I cannot but be convinced that your judgement will be just and will lead to the liberation of my client.