the guards said something to tahir. tahir said they were radioing their commander, they are asking for permission to bring us inside. tahir pleaded with the guards to protect us under the traditional law which requires them to give shelter to any stranger who asks. he begged them to take us inside the base before the taliban came looking for us. about two or three minutes passed. the guard stood between sandbags on the roof. for the first time that night, it occurred to me that we might actually succeed. escape, an ending i never dreamed of, might be our salvation. he says, quote, i held my hands still and waited. for the whole time that david rohde was being held captive by the taliban, "the new york times," his employer, kept quiet about it, in hopes that keeping it out of the press, keeping it from becoming public, would increase the odds that david would survive. and he did survive. and his survival, his escape, is just a remarkable story of resilience and pluck and keeping your head in unimaginable circumstances, e

the man responded, lift up your shirt tahir said, i immediately obliged. he's asking if you're an american. i'm an american journalist i said in english, surprised at the sound of my own voice in the open air. please help us. please help us. i kept talking hoping they would recognize that i was a native english speaker. i said we were kidnapped by the taliban seven months ago. we were kidnapped outside kabul and brought here. i said do you speak english hoping one of the pakistani guards on the roof understood. do you speak english? the guard said something to tahir. he said they are radioing their commander. tahir pleaded with the guard to protect us under the traditional honor code which requires a pashtun to give shelter to any stranger who asks. he begged them to take us inside the base before the taliban came looking for us. about two or three minutes passed, the guards stood behind sandbags on the roof. for the first time that night, it occurred to me that we might actually succeed. escape, an ending i never dreamed of, might be our salvation. he say

amy: aisha tahir, thank you for being with us, senior at princeton university and an african americandies major. helped organize a protest on campus wednesday to support the move community. congratulations on your upcoming graduation. as we turn now to speak with historian sam redman, author of "bone rooms: from scientific racism to human prehistory in museums." ♪♪ [music break] amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. you can watch, listen, and read transcripts using our ios and android apps. download them for free from the apple app store or google play store today. this week's apologies om the university of pennsylvania and princeton uversity for the handling of the remains of an african-american child killed by philadelphia police in the 1985 move bombing that killed 11 people, five of them children, come after the university of pennsylvania museum of archaeology and anthropology known as the penn museum just apologized earlier this month for holding more than 1000 stolen schools of enslaved people -- skulls of enslaved people and its