Nigeria, Feb. 15 -- This column continues from last week. Isaac Jacob Rochussen, the patrician from the Netherlands who brought Nicholas Said to New York in January 1860, exposed him to his first baptism of American racism.

At an abolitionist church in New York, Rochussen was told that he couldn't sit on the same row of seats with Said. Like all Black people in white-dominated churches, Said had to sit on the balcony of the church. Rochussen was so exasperated he and Said left the church in a huff.

After taking Said on a voyage to Haiti (where the mixed-race freemen in charge of the government there treated Said like a subhuman because of his pitch-dark complexion and Kanuri facial marks), Rochussen was broke and returned to New York. ...