The millions of Africans taken to work in sugar were not taught to read and write. They were not meant to speak, but to work. Olaudah Equiano, who lived from approximately 1745 to 1797, later claimed that he was an African taken to Barbados to work in sugar. He did learn to write, and recounted his life story in an autobiography. Equiano described what it was like to arrive in Barbados and to be sold off to the sugar planters: We were conducted immediately to the merchant's yard, where we were all pent up together, like so many sheep in a fold. . . . On a signal given (as the beat of a drum), the buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined, and make choice of that parcel that they like best. Because he was slight and sickly (as well as smart and useful), Equiano managed not to be sold to a plantation. So while his words take us from Africa to the sugar islands, even his memoir does not take us to the fields. That means we cannot hear the voices of the Africans directly. To tell their story, we must begin with what they did—how sugar shaped their lives. –Sugar Changed the World, Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos Which statement best explains how the media supports the text? The image of the author described in the passage emphasizes the humanity and potential of enslaved persons. The image shows the author holding the book he wrote as proof that he knew how to read and write. The image depicts the author at the time of his enslavement at a sugar plantation on Barbados. The image helps the reader visualize Olaudah Equiano’s physical health, which prevented him from working on a plantation.