Abraham Galloway was about that life. He secreted himself into a Philadelphia-bound ship’s cargo hold, wedged between tar barrels. But Galloway knew that fleeing wasn’t a ticket to liberation. More work was needed, and he was ready for the challenge.
Galloway helped plan a massive attack on the American South to free our people. Knowing that our Haitian cousins knew a thing or two about winning an uprising, he sailed across the borders and spent fifteen weeks plotting with them.
The start of the Civil War dissolved their plans, but Galloway kept fighting.
He returned home and put his life on the line again as a spy for the Union Army. For two years, he camouflaged himself in southern communities, gathering intelligence and dodging white patrollers.
Despite working for the Union, he understood that northern soldiers were also anti-Black. So he armed himself with mistrust and a pistol.
In Howard Craft’s play, The Fire of Freedom, Galloway says, “A slave will not be free without much killing.” He once pressed the barrel of his pistol to the ear of an Army recruiter in demand for equal pay, education, and rights of Black soldiers.
Galloway spent his life committed to the liberation struggle. No folding. We must do the same. We’re up against centuries of anti-Blackness, but with grit and a strategy to determine our futures, we will win just as Galloway showed us how to do.