Read the excerpt from "What Does American Democracy Mean to Me?” by Mary McLeod Bethune.We are rising out of the darkness of slavery into the light of freedom. Here my race has been afforded [the] opportunity to advance from a people 80 percent illiterate to a people 80 percent literate; . . . from total disfranchisement to participation in government; from the status of chattels to recognized contributors to the American culture.