Identify what makes you a good person or what parts of yourself are you proud of. That is how you should live every day of your life, including when we come around these discussions around politics. Maybe then we can see through all the lies to some degree towards this common light that i think we all do have as americans and as people. It is something around kindness and truth. It does exist we will not get there by attacking each other. Host Kimberly Wehle is the university of baltimore law professor, legal contributor to abc news. A guest on this program on occasion. Your that his book is master, slave, has, wife. It tells the story of william and ellen craft. Quick second begin to say what does make it compelling to me. I think what originally drew me to it was the phenomenal adventure story data and the narrative of running 100 miles to freedom. It talks about this incredible escape they make. They are husband and wife, enslaved in macon, georgia. They decide theyre going to flee for freedom. Not by hiding and traveling by nap they go out in the full light of day disguised as master and slave with ellen posing as the master and william playing the role as the slave. That story just gripped me from the beginning. Helen how will know where the in there time . Quite well known. There is a quotation and he is speaking in front of thousands. Millions will read their story and know that with admiration. Many people across the United States knew the name at that time. They chose to tell their story. Why do you think they fell from the pages of our history books . An interesting question. Some of it depends on which history books youre talking about. I will probably quote one of their great granddaughters on this. The story has to do with where theyre coming from, the kind of story they had access to. It is certainly true that they are not known like douglas or taubman Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman. I think the reason is complicated. They have so many pieces to it. It is it doesnt simply end with achieving the emancipation when it reaches the north. It is not one that is eating for us to embrace. It has some of the endings. That is probably what makes it so exciting and my point of view. Hoxie mentioned Frederick Douglass. Who are some of the other important characters in your narrative . There are a lot of people across the board from abolitionist lecturers, black activists who come in and out of the story. I have already partner who i worked with. I have a writing partner that i worked with. She said it is like in the ordinary movie, you would have in the mainstream, hollywood movie you would have seen over the last number of years, you would have henry Daniel Webster. Where more recently, Frederick Douglass at the center of the story. Now, these characters get walk on roles. That is how i like to see them. Some of them come in and out, they are great lecturers. They kind of show the craft of telling the story and what it means to live a life and freedom in the north and overseas. It is the president of the United States and secretary of state, Daniel Webster figuring out how they would try to help recapture this. There International Celebrities that get another craft abroad. Lots and lots of people go in and out of the story. If you actually take a look at the book jacket and you undress the book and remove this jacket, you will see that there are a lot of people on the inside of the page. You can see some of these are some of the many people you will meet along the way. Quite the story opens in 1840 and you make the point that this year is a real seminal one it not only American History but globally. What are the important things that were happening in this country in 1848 that makes this a real focal point of their ability to make the escape dated . 1848 is one of those crazy years were so many things are happening. Worldwide, you have democratic revolution sweeping across europe. Those revolutions are being celebrated in the United States. They are toasted in washington dc by people who are actually moving enslaved people in bondage themselves. This is the year of seneca falls. You have a Global Pandemic speaking art sweeping around. He had information revolution and transportation revolution. All kinds of technology are working as never before to bring you and people across the country. You have the Mexican American war on the mexican session you have the gold rush. It is a really intense and exciting time in the United States history. Manifest destiny is a catchphrase. That is why this is so interesting. They make manifest a new destiny of their own. What was the population of the country at the time . That is a really good question. I dont have it at my fingertips. It was definitely exploding and changing. This is also a time when there are new immigrants coming to this country as never before. Even as they are landing in liverpool. Liverpool is one of those places where does of impoverished people are getting on boats and coming over to the United States. Irish immigrants in the potato famine. Chinese immigrants arting to make it over with the gold rush. Working on the railroads, the mines and such. Our population is exploding and changing. It is in a dramatic rate. How many enslaved persons were in the United States at the time . I wrote down about 3 million that one of your historical figures referenced. You also tell readers we think about the fugitive slave law as something that came out of the compromise of 1850. It had been enforced since the very what did that early legislation mean for enslaved people . What did he do to their lives . Most of the fugitive slave law, and the constitution itself made it possible for legalized enslavers rights to go reaching over state lines and reclaiming their enslaved property or the labor that was owed them. As expected in the constitution. But they were many states, especially in the north that were getting around these laws. It was hard to enforce. George washington himself had a challenge. He himself was never able to recapture this. His labors were incensed by this. What is the use of having these protections for their Property Rights as they consider them when somebody escapes and abolitionist stronghold. Quite legally, you can do something but you actually cant. What is important to know about macon in 1840 . It was an urban center. It was a transportation hub. It was kind of a bustling place. You can still see the mountains where native people use to bury their dead. Those grounds were cut through. There is a real irony there of ellen and william craft laying on the scene. The man that she was forced to call master was charged in charge of the building. In those tracks related to slave workers. Let spend more time getting to know the two protagonists. Starting with william. How would he have been in 1848 . He was born in he was 25 years old. What was known about his life up until that point . What were his early days like . That was really interesting to discover. I did find out his original enslavers records answer is on death records that he was born in the town to parents who he knew and loved. He also grew up with them. He was enslaved by a man named hugh craft. Identified as just mr. Craft in the book. This man is known as someone who is invested in education, a christian man who had some of the best pews in town. This is a man who enjoys all these privileges. This is a person who is essentially in gambling debts. To the story of Williams Family being ripped apart and how that affected him. This is one of the emotional course of the book. The separation from their families, laying from his parents and his siblings and ellen from her mother. Williams parents, he was one of the younger children. They were laboring for hugh craft. They saw they were getting old. And past their prime. Williams mother had already had all these children, they were both probably in their 40s or so. He wanted to replenish his stock by creating in older slave people for younger ones. William was under 10 years old. About 10 years old when this happened. He asks craft because theyre losing their value. William remembers his parents and seeing them taken off and sold off to two different enslavers. What happens then is william and his siblings are left. His brothers are so old, he and his one other brother and one younger sister are waiting period the older brother and william are apprenticed. He is smart. He developed his skills. He will provide a return on his investment, what he does not know is hugh craft is having more and more financial trouble. This is what results in both william and disaster being put on a mortgage. I actually held that in my hands. You see the mortgaged alongside church pews and other physical property. They are listed there. As if they are things. What happens is the cotton speculation takes a downturn. The judgment, their lives are put online. You describe them washing his sister with chains on a wagon. And how this makes him so angry and how that anger coursed through him. Did he add anymore college of the story i just told . It is a devastating moment. I highly recommend also returning to the original narrative where william recounts this. He feels this burning inside of him. This fire inside of him. He cant even say goodbye to the sister. He is seeing her as she is being pulled away. He is already trying to back to see if he can say goodbye to her for the last time. He knows she will not be sold locally but she is going far away. That is the moment he will never forget and it leads to him seeking his own self emancipation. Also, being determined not to replicate the cycle of trauma within his own family. Not to have children and other family members who will be taken away from him in this way. You said william was precious to a cabinet maker and becomes an important part of the narrative. He seems to be able to earn his own income. How does that work . This was technically not legal but it was a really nice arrangement for enslavers. Williamsons was a young man by the name of hamilton. Williams enslavers was a young man by the name of hamilton. Whenever william worked on top of that, he made an arrangement with the cabinetmaker so he could earn his own wages. He had to work a full day and have all those wages go to ira hamilton but ira taylor and then he could keep the other wages he earned both at the cabinetmaker shop and the hotel which i think is also key. Hotel is basically where people are going in and out, traveling. That is another place he could have up information about how to move. Turning to ellen, she was a few years younger than william. What is your lineage . Ellen was the daughter of an enslaved woman named maria she had a really close relationship to this woman. They were both enslaved by ellens biological father whose name was james smith. James smith originally had a house in clinton, georgia. That is 12 minutes away from downtown macon. They eventually end up moving back to macon. James smith has a legal life in his household and they have a number of children and his wife, eliza smith is so enraged, her vision was to her biological father and her being mistaken for a child of the family, she wants to get rid of her and she seizes opportunity when her own daughter turns 18 years old. She has given this away as a wedding president to become the property of ellens halfsister. She the house slave of her own halfsister . Exactly. If she was standing in front of us today, what would we see . What did she look like . Very fair. I have a picture of her here and her older age on my desk. She was very fair complexion. She had dark, straight hair. Everybody talked about how lovely she was. They were known to be goodlooking people and very charming and graceful. She would have been she would have won a course in her day. This is something i learned. I have a wonderful friend. One of the things really exciting about this research is talking to people who have different areas of expertise. I have a friend who is a real expert with these kinds of clothing details. She was able to let me know how a woman like ellen would have dressed. She would have had a corset. If you were going to be a respectable person, that includes women enslaved women working as house slaves in these households. You would be wearing a corset. Possibly a kerchief on her head. Her enslavers did not want her to be mistaken for white or a member of the family. She would have been dressed in clothing that marked her as an enslaved woman. Ellen had her own specific skill. How important is that to her story . That was critical for a number of reasons. It was noted she was small. So when you have to william is the one who actually goes to the shop in macon and he buys a hat and he buys the vest and the shoes. A jacket would take a lot of work to make in four days. She made her own pants. That is something that would not be able to fit. Even other clothing items. When she tries on her vest, even william is looking at her like i dont think this will work. He panics. There is a newspaper that recounts in recounting this. He looks at her and thinks this cant work. But she is a closing expert so she knows she can lay her clothing in such a way that it is going to be all right. That knowledge as well as the selling expertise both helped her. When the make your escape when they make their escape in 1848, how long had they been a couple . They had this slave marriage ceremony in 1846. That was two years. They fell in love before that. Ellen had not wanted to marry to have this profound connection with another human being, knowing this person and any family she created with him could be taken from her at any time. Even when they fall in love earlier, their relationship is delayed. They think they are going to try to run first and mary later. The escape routes proved to be so out of reach that they decide to reverse the order. You said they pulled their plan together for this daring escape in just four days. What was the urgency . There is a clock that starts ticking. I guess i should back up for a moment to say that in order for them to even initiate this escape, they had to get written passes from their enslavers even information. As an enslaved person, you cannot travel without such a pass. There are severe punishments for traveling without this type of pass. They were denied literacy. It is not that they can forge one of the passes on their own. Your chances of getting one of these passes were going to be greatest if you were favored or right around the holidays. That would be the time you might be getting a couple of days off. Both of them were favored by those who enslave them. Ellen goes to her halfsister enslave her and gives an excuse, this is before christmas but she also gives an excuse that her aunt is ill. Even if this is a holiday ellen burst into tears. At that point, eliza gives her that permission. Both she and the cabinetmaker give them just a few days. That gives it the urgency of getting out of reach within that time. What was their plan and what was their destination . They were opposing ellen was posing as a wealthy, white male enslavers. She pulled this off with a subpar outfit. I am to quote my friend. The jacket was not custom fitted to her. Everything was a little big. But she had performance to give the impression of giving this man of class and having an enslaved person it gave her a higher status. William was going to be ellen and im sure would put these things on her face and wear glasses not only to hide expression but give her the appearance of being an invalid. William would wait on her. Hand and foot to make sure she was ok. That need, that bond would be built into their relationship. I was reading this through 2023. As you describe their disguises, the illness seemed impossible to believe they pulled it off. People were not questioning it all along the way. How did they do it . There were a lot of people who thought oked a little weird. This is one of the creepiest chapters. We have an eyewitness account from somebody who had this kind of strange feeling about them. There is this young man that looked spanish and had a strange way of walking. He notices and Something Else notices with him. There was also pretty early in their journey. They learn fast and they learned what was expected. It becomes all the more important. You are asked how they planned their journey. They are supposed to go from macon to savannah by train. And from savannah to charleston. One out from trust and all the way up to philadelphia. But that doesnt happen. Instead, they have to take this really intensive long journey with many more stops. They have to constantly improvise their goals. One of their aspects of their escape plans, he said william carried a gun. That is an excellent question. I was one of those moments where it just kind of took my breath away. They dont having any kind of gun in that narrative. There was a lot they dont say in their story. There are a lot of things that really turned the story and a whole new direction. I found this in the late 19th century legal case. He is describing what happened. In their narrative, when they landed in philadelphia, they get to a friendly, abolitionist boardinghouse. We cant this moment in their book and it is almost kind of comedic. They get there and they go upstairs. They say a prayer, they come back down. The boardinghouse owner says they go up and ellen is described still in her does still in her disguise. They have a costume change when they come down. The boardinghouse keeper is typically bewildered. He says to william, where is your master . William says this is my master. It is almost like a slapstick moment. And then finally, they say this is who we are. What i found in this newspaper account was something really different. In this account, ellen goes upstairs. He shows it to the housekeeper and reveals her they are and basically declares willingness. Where this is from is a mystery. Definitely in macon, this would have been if they were caught with a weapon like this, they would have lost their lives for sure. We dont know. What is amazing snow is they have that as a last resort on their journey. Cracks they have a map of their journey. They demonstrate that it is both arduous. So many risks for them along the way. Physical and security risks. Im going to invite my viewers to read this. A lot of interesting details. When they got to philadelphia, they were on free soil. Why not just stay in philadelphia . Philadelphia was dangerous. They asked and said i we say. . As soon as they arrived, the evolutions are going to want to know about this. There is excitement about their story. The original plan is to go to canada. They are thinking of staying for a little bit. But it is not safe because philadelphia is next door to the south. There are kidnappings there. They are still very much in danger. Their next destination is one if not canada . The activists say canada is really cold. You probably dont want to go there. But they wanted sent the craft of boston. Boston is known as this hotbed of raising abolitionists by the slavers, it is a place where there is a Strong Black Community and neighborhood with a physically cane protected. Ou go over there now, you can actually see these alleyways where people can go in and out. It is described as a honeycomb. It would be hard to physically get them out of that neighborhood. Did the word starts burning immediately . You talk about this being an age of communication about their story. Did it begin spreading far and wide at that point . Absolutely. As it was today, this is a great story about following these different activists, you can hear the whispers through the letters like did you hear them . They heard of this incredible thing it is nothing like ive ever seen. People are going back and forth. They are traveling across the country. The encounter this meant this antislavery activist. He writes a letter to William Lloyd garrison. That letter is published everywhere. The telegraph had just been invented. All of the sudden we have news from one part of the country and it is almost instantly in another part of the country which could be great if you want to share the news. Not so great if your people you are people like the crafts and you have a mark on your back. It is hard not to be struck by how brave they were. They make this decision to live their life publicly there. They are not hiding. Would that have put them in constant danger at that time . Was it fairly comfortable for a while . I think it was a little bit of a low. The way you get that sense of a little is the fact that if you look in the boston city directory, William Kraft advertised the services. He has his address there. They also address his work in the liberator. It seems they must have had some sort of level of security there. In the neighborhood they were, in this honeycomb neighborhood. But they were not. Their personality they were great people. They were basically saying here we are. This is the lecture circuit and invites them to join him on the lecture circuit. Can you give our viewers a sense of what the speaker circuit was like to society at that time . Frederick douglass and wayne graham were two of the biggest speakers on the circuit. The lecture circuit was something that was very popular. Across a lot of different subject areas. You have people like emerson and Daniel Webster and others having these lengthy lectures. It might be something that you want to do, you are stuck indoors, kind of like entertainment on some level. And also a way of learning, educating and being educated about various subject matter. The Antislavery Movement was key. It was key to getting the word out about what slavery was actually like. There was all kinds of support that slavers were sending about enslaved people being much better off than people in the north. This is something that ellen kraft actually writes down. So having reallife eyewitnesses of human bondage and speaking to those experiences is something that really moves and activates krause. At this time, this is another speaker, she was really just getting started, Harriet Tubman in 1848 was still enslaved. You did not have women on the circuit the way you end up seeing ellen kraft. The crafts on top of joining the lecture circuit phenomena are adding something very new. It also provided income for them i would presume. They did not normally charge ticket sales but they had a collection basket coming around. They were living a somewhat comfortable life and then everything changed after the compromise of 1850 and the provision about the new fugitive slave law. How did that change the circumstance for the crafts . In every possible way. This was a devastating law. It meant the slavers were angry and determined that the north would be the north would participate actively in the return of fugitives and be good on their word. What this did was enable slavers like the colleges, like ira taylor to go to the north themselves or send proxies. They were claiming to be enslaved people like the craft. They can have u. S. Commissioners bypassing local state authorities. U. S. Commissioners making these judgments. These commissioners actually get paid twice as much if they find fugitives versus nonfugitives. These people can also live they can require the participation of the marshall. They have octopus powers now. They are completely muscled up and authorized to be able to claim people like the collapse the crafts. They have no ability to testify against their slavers. The graphs are so wellknown that there is not even a question of identification. So this is a cataclysmic moment in American History. When the south is saying to the north show us that you stand behind this law. It becomes even bigger for the crafts because Robert Collins decides he wants to make this a test case for the nation. Wheres the crafts and slavers had not taken action toward us. Even as they were traveling all the way across the country. They were embarrassing their slavers in macon. Even as they were living in boston again and they could be identified as being there, the enslavers did not they did not do anything. This gets them fired up. It gets them determined to prove to all of america that slavery would never go on. He hires someone by the name of willis used to capture the crafts. How did the community in boston around the crafts respond to the efforts he was making . Willis hughes actually travel together with a partner. John knight worked in the shop with william so he could identify him. Willis hughes had experienced with ellen krafts family. It is said by one report that he actually brutally physically punished ellens uncle to the point where the uncle was near death. These men, they meant business when they came up and they had all these rights, they could raise this policy. Anyone they called upon in boston would be required by the terms of this law to help them. I think they probably think this is not going to be too bad. They arrived in their hotel. They can find william right away. They know the crafts are a 20 minute walk away. But they encounter resistance on many different ones. First with the legal authorities , that takes its own comical turn. And then the ordinary citizens of boston who stand up, down to the newsboys street boys who are throwing rocks and expletives at them. You said ellen former slaver dr. Collins was a physician. He is also unionist. Why was this an important case for them to help preserve the union . Why did it ultimately involve Daniel Webster and the president of the United States . I do think you do have to kinda read the story. There are so many plot twists that are beyond believing. But he becomes a bit of a cat and mouse game. They stand up and a lot of people stand up with them. Then they died down. They are zooming back and forth to different hiding places. And then the macon jailer and his partner are trying to chase them. Meanwhile, they are getting harassed. One of the techniques the crafts they try to keep these guys busy. They get charged for smoking in the street or carrying a gun. Where ridiculous things like running the toll. It is all of these crazy things going back and forth and then such level of frustration and building up and the stakes are so high that collins turns to the present and extreme frustration as as you gotta do something about this. What was your assessment as a historian . Of Daniel Websters role in all of this . Daniel webster is really interesting character, one of the ones that i cant say i enjoyed getting to know in this process. He is a difficult person to know. He is somebody who is known for his powerful, steering, beautiful words about liberty. And he was a leader in so many different kinds of compromises in our nation. He was able to work across party lines. But in the end he was secretary of state. He is in the senate and doesnt exley get to vote for the fugitive slaves. But he becomes kind of the voice of the north that changes the tide. And as one historian put it, when Daniel Webster gets up to say that the north has to support the south on the fugitive slave act and a compromise must be passed, that is the point at which civil war in our nation is averted. For the time being. This is a man who embodies so many different contradictions personally as well. I go into that in the book. I scanned the listings that he experiences personally. He is balancing all this with isnt within his own life. And then he is trying to create this balance in the nation. He ends up as secretary of state being in charge of having the crafts captured and being returned. It becomes too dangerous for the crafts to stay involved any longer and the next up through canada is in linn. Request in linn was a really interesting step to follow through. Once they land their, they are physically not in the same kind of risk. Then comes the question of how they are going to live their lives of freedom. You start to see them i started to see them evolve as their own independent characters. They are not always together, not always working together as a team. There is almost this bromance where they are going off and speaking and all of these amazing sites and rallying crowds. There is that. There is the lecture circuit they go on which takes on all sorts of things in england. There is the longerlasting desire to have an education that requires some settling down. So they do that. It is a whirlwind journey. How did they finally get an education . They have an opportunity to learn, to study as an industrial, agricultural and Educational Cooperative and her daughter, ada lovelace is known as the worlds first computer programmer. They had this incredible state where they are educated mostly children and the crafts go there, they teach their skills and they get to really sit down and learn to read and write. This is the first dedicated time. You can see a letter that ellen kraft writes just a couple of months after their arrival here. You can see the artistry in her hand is just beautiful. They are exquisitely penned. Write this letter back to america. You can see the formation of these letters which are really moving for me to hold as a record. Ellens hand moving across the page. They had no opportunity to return to the United States as long as slavery was legal. Once the war was over, what was the decision about where they wanted to live and why . That is the thing about the crafts . With all these different endings, they could have stayed in england, they could have live comfortably there. They could have come back to the United States as they decide to do and settled in boston which would have been a great an easier place for them to be instead, they make another difficult choice of going back to georgia, back to the south. To start an Educational Cooperative of their own. They encounter trouble there. We are looking at late 19th Century America and after the civil war it is not like it is happily ever after. They have people who are really angry and dont want formerly enslaved people owning property and voting and doing all kinds of things. The crafts did that. They built their school. When it burns down, they built another. On and on again, they were pursuing their own version of the american dream. One aspect of the story is that ellen was able to reunite with her formerly enslaved mother. How did that work out for the two of them . You have all of these numbers reaching across times and states. Her husband, this is a whole another chapter. She learns where her mother is. She cant get to her mother behind enemy lines. Macon is one of the last bastions. She knows her mother is there. She activates a whole network of people able to find her mother who turns out to be living not very far from where ellen herself is living. This Union General says your daughter is looking for you. Are you willing to go . She says absolutely. There is this incredible moment where she is at the railroad station. A journalist describes thousands of people were gathered there to see them off knowing his mother was going to be reuniting with her child again. Those are one of the moments i will never forget reading. How was it received . It was received well enough but it is almost like they published too late. The narrative came out in the 40s. Harriet Beecher Stowe had written a story thats sold really well. That is kind of a tangential connection. By 1860 we were so close to civil war. They did not have the sort of bestselling runaway success that they had many years earlier. If a leader today were to pick it up, is it accessible to contemporary readers . It is what excited me and drew me into the story myself. It is definitely very readable. We have about four minutes left. I found a sentence or two that you wrote. I would like to have you talk about. You write the absence of a pp ending may partly explain why the craftsre n better known. This remains the source of their enduring power. What were you thinking as you wrote those words . I was thinking how much we are in a unique position today to be able to embrace all the complexes, ambiguities that were so hard to discuss in those times. They remain difficult today. We are living in a time when people are trying to tell different kinds of american stories. We have the declaration of independence. We have those notes being sung anew by black activists after the passage of the fugitive act. You have them retelling American History. For us as a nation, to be able to upload all of these Different Things in our