The Atlanta History Center presents an evening with author Ilyon Woo on Thursday, January 26 beginning at 7pm.
Woo's book Master Slave Husband Wife takes readers on a journey back to 1848 where a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history.
Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.
Along the way, they dodged slave traders, military officers, and even friends of their enslavers, who might have revealed their true identities. The tale of their adventure soon made them celebrities, and generated headlines around the country.
But even then, they were not out of danger. With the passage of an infamous new Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, all Americans became accountable for returning refugees like the Crafts to slavery. Then yet another adventure began, as slave hunters came up from Georgia, forcing the Crafts to flee once again—this time from the United States, their lives and thousands more on the line and the stakes never higher.
The Aiken Lecture will take place in the Woodruff Auditorium is located inside McElreath Hall on the campus of the Atlanta History Center.
Doors and cash bar will open at 6pm.
Click here for tickets!