William & Ellen Craft: Forging Their Own Freedom

Fugitive slaves William and Ellen Craft desperately wanted to live as husband and wife in a place where their children could be free. Using disguises, misdirection, and carefully rationed resources, the Crafts narrowly escaped to the North. Their awe-inspiring story made them famous in Boston abolitionist circles — and made them targets for bounty hunters.

Barbara McCaskill, author of Love, Liberation, and Escaping Slavery: William and Ellen Craft in Cultural Memory, shares the story of this daring pair. McCaskill is the Co-Director of the Civil Rights Digital Library Initiative at the University of Georgia.

Anna Fisher-Pinkert hosts this new podcast from the Commonwealth Museum. She is an award-winning multimedia producer. Anna's work has appeared on public radio stations and in exhibit halls around the country. She is also the host of Commonwealth Journal on WUMB.