I also think about the power and powerlessness of language as it relates to the status of Sims and the women whose bodies he used and then buried in his historical record. What does it mean for us to consider the power in Sims' published, public voice alongside the powerlessness of having, like Anarcha, Lucy and Betsy, a black female body that because of its blackness and femaleness is public in a very different way – a body open to public shaming and disgust – vulnerable, unprotected?

- Aimee Meredith Cox