CALEXICO CHRONICLE — When William B. Gould IV began reading his great-grandfather’s diary, discovering he was an escaped slave who joined the Navy to fight for his freedom, he knew that this would be a story that would inspire many. So Gould worked for more than 30 years to be able to publish the diary into a book he would call “Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor.” Yet when he arrived at Southwest High School in El Centro to speak about the book, it was Gould’s own accomplishments that inspired those attending his presentation on Saturday afternoon, Jan. 29. Gould was in town to serve as keynote speaker for the Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Committee’s Stone of Hope Award ceremony earlier that day, both on the eve of the start of Black History Month. Gould, much like his great-grandfather, William Gould I, is no stranger to discrimination and fighting for civil rights. Gould made history when he became the first African American professor at the Stanford School of Law, and just three years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Gould served as a consultant to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission providing recommendations on seniority disputes and conciliation procedures.