On Wed., April 23 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. enjoy an evening with Scott Shane, recently a reporter for the New York Times. We’ll meet in the Community Room at Linden Park Apartments, 301 McMechen St. Shane will be discussing the life and times of Thomas Smallwood, a freed slave from Maryland and shoemaker who lived in DC. From 1830 he arranged, in partnership with an abolitionist in the north, to help 150 enslaved people in Maryland and DC escape. Shane’s book is called Flee North, and it has received good reviews.
Thomas Smallwood was very much in the tradition of Harriet Tubman but with a unique twist: he wrote dispatches (using a pseudonym) for an abolitionist newspaper published in Albany, NY, mocking the slaveholders after their slaves safely escaped. “The great blockheads cannot yet account for the mysterious disappearance of their man!” he gloated after one mission.
Shane also writes about the slave trade in Baltimore and a social-climbing trader who owned a private jail on Pratt Street. The book is widely available. He will bring copies to sell ($20 cash) and sign. He assumes most in the audience will not have read the book and will gear his comments to them.
Everyone is welcome to come and bring a friend. Light refreshments will be available. Please RSVP: graypanthers@boltonhillmd.org.
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