Scott shane to the library to discuss his latest book flee north, a forgotten hero in the fight for freedom in slavery borderland in it, he recounts the life of abolitionist Thomas Smallwood, who bought his own freedom, helped hundreds of others escape slavery in baltimore in the underground, flee north also tells the story of the baltimore slave hope slaughter, who shaped who shipped hundreds of people south from the inner harbor, often separating them from their families forever. This the author will be joined in conversation by journalist scott shane is a former reporter for the New York Times and baltimore sun. He is the author of objective troy a terrorist president and the rise of the drone in dismantling utopia. How information ended the soviet Union Michael fletcher is a senior writer. Espns enterprise and investigative team. He formerly reporter for espns the undefeated and the washington post. He is a coauthor of supreme discomfort, the divided soul of clarence thomas. In his review of the book for the washington post, richard crighton, who wrote flee north, a gripping story, told at a brisk pace in a no fuss of practice. Reporter is a model of the advantages that journalists can bring to the writing of history it is the kind of story sorely need at a time when there is no of opportunities for inspiring acts of heroism. Award winning historian Henry Louis Gates comment. The book restores American History one of the most daring African American abolition, author of a long neglected slave narrative who not only courageously fought slavery but brilliantly satirized it in then publisher starred review. They wrote this astonishing and propulsive narrative racist wrong by returning smollett to prominence. Its an absolute must read. It is my great pleasure to welcome scott shane Michael Fletcher to the pratt library. Yeah, thank you everyone and have to say its a privilege to be here with my old friend and colleague. And when i say old, i mean long, you know, of long standing. And i mean the other thing i was going to ask you about, you know, scott and i worked together at the baltimore and, you know, back then, like everyone else in the newsroom, i had the utmost for scotts work. He had such range as a reporter. He could find compelling stories and Research Laboratories on street corners, even at the nsa you know, this guy knew how to do his job. And it was always it was just always who you know, who i respected and i think everyone in the room looked up to. And hes done it again. Hes done again. Another compelling piece, this book is is so, so interesting. Its a fascinating read that for me kind of reordered how i thought about how i think about the underground railroad. It sort of added a lot of context, a lot of have to the story. I knew in the story i had learned in school was about Harriet Tubman and, the quakers and, you know, thats basically what i knew again. And then this book certainly expands that. So, you know, congrats relation scott i think youve thank you for your service here. Lets start here in the in the subtitle of the book, you call Thomas Smallwood a forgotten hero. Why forgotten . Well, you know, i think when i kind of came across him and dug into his life and found out more and more about him, not only the escapes hed organized, but also the fact that hed about those escapes. You know, my question, why do we not know about this guy and there is an answer to that. He you know, he ends up in canada running for his own life. He operating a clandestine network. He wrote about the escapes, but he wrote about them under a pseudonym. But i think theres another element, which is that his white colleagues, for the most part, just left him out of the story. So i was warned against not with the microphone. So ill try to hold it still. But i think you know, i think it was theres also an element of even closest partner in this operation story just sort of failing to credit him with what he so, you know, i think in you know if justice is done, this guy will be very well known. His story will be taught in schools. And if we could only a picture of him, we could we could build a statue. You know whats amazing . And you mention hes so, you know, small was a shoemaker living as a free black man in washington, d. C. With slavery, operating all around him. How did manage to organize his escapes kind of how did his operation work . Well, so he had been born in slavery himself in bladensburg outside d. C. And then bought his freedom time over a of time for 500, paid it off when he was about the age of 30. Hes free. He starts this shoemaking business he marries has a bunch of kids hes got four kids at the time and another one is on the way and. So know he has sort of vowed a war on slavery but isnt really know how to carry it out. And hes a busy guy and its really when this guy, charles torrey, comes to town and the two of them meet that they find that theyre thinking along the same lines theyre tired of talking about how terrible slavery is and they want to do something about it. And crunk, in a concrete sense. And so they start organizing these escapes. And you know that there are several things that set, set escapes apart, especially the beginning. They were not just waiting people to decide. They wanted to to run. They actually approach and slave people that small would knew and say, you know, what are you doing on saturday night and which was which was actually a popular time for a successful escapes because there was a little more freedom on sunday and they werent looking for you on sunday morning. So and so they were actually recruiting to run and the other thing was they werent for the most part setting people off in ones twos. They were trying do it by the wagon load. And so, you know, repeatedly you read about a wagon load of ten, a wagon load of 12, wagon load of 1518. And this would be men women and children in you know, covered with something, taking off in the middle of the middle of the night. This is such an interesting, odd couple, i think tori and smallwood. And not only did they freak as a people, but then they turned around and rubbed it in the faces of the enslavers. I mean, describe that smallwood would write these columns mocking in slavery saying it. We did it. We pulled this off. Yeah. And you know, when i remember when i read the book, you know, early on i said, where did you get the courage, you know, to do that. Yes. Yeah. And where did you get the motivation in a way. I mean, thats one of the things i just think of in a practical sense, is hes running this shoe making business by day. Hes helping organize these escapes by night. When does he find time to, you know, settle down, light a candle or whatever and, you know, write up these that he then mails off to. But somehow he did it. You mentioned the odd couple. So charles story is about a years younger. He he was not from wealthy family outside boston but he was from a wellconnected his parents died of tuberculosis this and he was by a grandfather who had actually served in congress. He went to exeter. He went to yale so he had sort of an elite education in. But he so in that sense, he was sort the opposite of Thomas Smallwood, who had first been taught to read by his enslaver, and then was a servant in a house household of an educator in washington, a guy who ran a number of schools and, that guy who was from scotland and his adult children, all apparently took an interest in thomas and you know, sort of getting him into literature. And so on so strangely enough i think by the time they meet in the beginning of 1842, despite those very different backgrounds, i think their education were in some ways comparable because smallwood had just absorbed this from all over the place and later, you know, hes sort of constantly quoting philosophers and quoting poets and showing how much he knew. And i think the other thing they had in common over the chasm of race, age and edge, formal education was as tory had been as a new who became an abolitionist hed been on the lecture circuit, hed been involved in these kind of internecine fights in the in the abolitionist community. So hed been a lot of overheated meeting halls talking 4 hours and smallwood had taken an interest in colonization which was this movement for africanamericans just give up on this country and move to somewhere else sierra leone barbados but also in particular liberia which the colony in west africa that had been founded by the american Cotton Society and there was a big debate in the black community in d. C. , in baltimore over this question basically came to is this a good thing to just leave the country that you the only country you know behind and try to get a new start somewhere else and also eventually kind of what are the motives of the white people who were financing this operation . And smallwood was very interested for a number of years. And then you know you get the feeling that the scales fell from his eyes and he realized that basically were talking about ethnic cleansing and that the the white people who were funding the American Colonization Society actually, their problem was not with enslaved black people, it was with free black people. And they wanted to just, you know, usher them out of the country. And so he broke with that and tried to convince all his friends to break with that. He, too, had been involved in a whole lot of talk. Right. So you get the feeling they come together in 1842 and theyre both ready to do something very concrete. And thats what they do. Yeah. And very radical, too, right . And very radical. Very dangerous. Now, how did these columns go over so well . The you know, the tory comes to town is he has a hes a guy who tried his hand as teaching and then briefly tries his hand at preaching and just flames out completely in both of those professions. And so then becomes caught up in the antislavery cause. And hes going to his new idea is to be a correspondent for a bunch of small abolitionist papers in the north. Hell come to dc, hell cover congress. Hell cover the debates over slavery and hell send his dispatches. North north. But you, you get the feeling that he was much more interested in what he could do, sort of hands and antislavery than than even these columns off. But the one of the papers he is connected with or hes hes formed a little bit of relationship with is a little in albany then called toxin of liberty toxin or an old word for bell basically its the liberty bell and its a small abolitionist paper and hes sending his columns off to them as he gets his start. But once they get these wagon loads going off at night, it appears that smallwood, who takes the lead and and certainly continues use to send these dispatches and you know his its you know if i could get a half hour with Thomas Smallwood i would id pay a lot money for that. And one of the questions i would ask him is just like, what were you about . You know what . Why were you taking this somewhat risky step, even if youre writing it under a pseudonym of calling attention to the escapes, you know, using the real names of the enslavers using real the people who escaped writing it in real time and. I have not found any other example of of somebody writing about escapes in real time. And it was so much in real time that small would occasionally mentions that he had to hold a column and not send it off to albany until he was sure he heard from. Usually canada that the people he was writing about were already on the other side of the border. But i think part it was his personality, his interest in, literature. He was a big fan of charles, and he took his pseudonym from Charles Dickens and he kind of liked that dickensian satirical style. But i also think for him as well as for tory, there was sort of a larger strategy that was that was part of their plan what they wanted to demoralize people. Yeah they wanted to not just move these people, you know, in whatever numbers they could out of the reach of the enslavers but their hope was that see you know there were people in dc people baltimore who had say owned half a dozen people and they wake up one morning and theyre gone. And that was lot of money. You know, i calculated i made a rough calculation that a wagon load 15 people that would describes might have been worth something. Like 200,000 in todays dollars. And so youre talking about a big chunk of peoples even wealthy peoples wealth just disappearing overnight. So i think they were hoping to essentially undermine faith in this in the system. And smallwood describes overhearing a couple of these in because he would lurk and even drop them in his neighborhood and at the market at the rail station and hed hear some of the people who he was relieving, shall we say, of their human property and writing about hed hear talking, you. And so he heard them talking a couple of them talking how im never going to buy slave. Im done with this. And of course, that was music to his ears because what he wanted, he wanted to say, you know, its a heck of a lot easier. Just hire somebody, pay them. What an extraordinary thing. And to me, this story hasnt been totally lost to history. But until now, small would was you know, people didnt know about him. Why do you think that is . Well i think to tory came from a a Strong Community of abolitionists in massachusetts. Hed been active on the scene in massachusetts abolition a few years before coming south d. C. So hes kind of wellconnected up there when dies he gets a manure in a beautiful graveyard in cambridge kind of like an obelisk. It has a has his face on it has some quotations and now its surrounded by flowers. Its its really quite lovely. And he also he died another abolitionist kind of pulled together a memoir of tory thats mostly drawn his journals and his correspondence and then in more recent years, i the 2013, a distant cousin of tory, wrote a, you know, modern a very good modern biography of charles story. So he is not a wellknown figure, but he has he has certainly not been ignored, whereas smallwood i think its fair to say, has been ignored and you know, part of it is. The fact that he operated under a pseudonym and that he, he moved canada. But i think theres definitely more to it. You in his later years tory was writing his letters are mostly preserved or many of them are preserved. And he was writing about the escape operations at a time when smallwood safely in canada and, and even when smallwood had been named outed in the in the baltimore sun. In fact and so was no reason to withhold his name certainly in a private letter but did and he took essentially took credit for the escapes that smallwood had organized not only with tory but on his own, because tory went off to be the editor of that paper in albany. And so for a year or more, smallwood was doing this all by himself. And so so i think there is a racial element. This an element of of racism of of sort not crediting. God knows why exactly with what he had achieved and maybe a little bit of a desperation on tories part to leave his on history and to prove to the many doubters, even in his own family that he had. He hed accomplished something. Yeah, i in a review that ran in a very fine newspaper i worked for many years they point out that you kind of slept around a little bit, you know, for you know, for not giving credit. Smallwood and i think the word they use that the will use as churlish, churlish service. I dont know you to be mean, scott, but why did you why did you say that . Well, so, so i first of all, i mean, i think that the the post review was fabulous and and i even mind the reviewer calling me churlish i like that word churlish ive always liked that word yeah but thats a great read. But i think i think he and i disagree. But he and i actually exchanged emails after the review ran and, and he makes a very good point, which is that charles tory risked everything doing everything his family, his his life for cause for the antislavery cause. And thats why this reviewer thought it was kind of a little nit picking to point out that he had credited smallwood but you know, there were consequences that no ones heard of. Smallwood i mentioned tories lovely gray, very impressive grave and sort of memorial in in cambridge, mass and tory is grave is in the toronto necropolis and the old toronto city and my wife franzi and i whos here spend a lot of time tromping around that graveyard looking for any trace of smallwoods and it he is buried there. Theres record that shows hes buried there. But any stone has long since sunk the grass and theres no sign that, you know, that he was ever there. Interesting. I learned something many things reading this book. One was you write that small god was the one who coined the term underground. Yeah. Thats thats the origin of the term. And how were you able as a journalist to pin that down to of sort of know that thats so its sort of a fun story concerning theres a about slavery and basically it has a baltimore, im pleased to say so there was a note Police Constable by the name john zelle and he, like a lot of police in those days made much of his money on the side running people who had fled slavery and dragging them back for. The reward money that the enslaver was offering and so what smallwood from somebody who overheard this guy, john zelle exclaiming in frustration one day, you know, i dont know how these people are escaping. Theyre not leaving a trace. They must getting away by underground railroad or steam balloon. And thats basically like we would say, they must have been teleported canada or or they must have been abducted by aliens. In other words, i no clue how theyre getting out of here because there were no underground railroads. There were railroads, but not underground. And steam balloon, sort of like an experimental technology, we could say. So. So apparently got wind of this and he he in somewhat snarky fashion, advises slaveholder who has lost his whos smallwood once puts it in one place puts it whose human property whose walking property had walked off. He advises that person that perhaps left by the underground railroad or steam balloon that this console was was swearing about the day and then clearly something clicked and smallwood thought this is great because first of all, it was a huge compliment to him. And this operation. And so he starts riffing on the notion of an underground railroad and he he advises the slave holders to report to the office of the underground railroad in washington for word of their missing property. And he at one point says he cant reveal the secret of the underground railroad is only known to the president and the cabinet. This guy lived a 15 minute walk from the u. S. Capitol. So sort of an inside the beltway joke way ahead of the beltway and and at one point, he names. General agent of all the branches, t