Here are three historical moments to inspire us all to keep pushing for liberation and finding ways to "trick" a system that harms us.
Ellen and William Craft: Snow fell from the sky as Ellen and William Craft slipped into their costumes while hidden in a cornfield. Ellen pretended to be a sick white planter traveling with his darker-skinned "slave": her husband William. They boarded a steamboat from Macon, Georgia, to Philadelphia. Three days later, they were free.
Anna Marie Weems was about that life in November 1855. She was just 15 years old when she escaped slavery in Maryland. She disguised herself as a boy – Joe Wright – a carriage driver. Soon after, there was a $500 bounty on her head. She kept running until she reunited with her family in Canada.
Robert Smalls convinced his enslaver to let him keep the earnings he made when hired out for side jobs. His enslaver double-crossed him – or thought he did. One night, when ordered to work on a Confederate ship, Smalls and others sailed away. He donned a captain's hat, passed through checkpoints, and steered the ship toward Union waters, where, in exchange for their passage to land, he surrendered all the Confederacy's maps and codes.
Our history, culture, and daily lives are under attack. Those in power need us to be distracted. Let's stay focused.