"Shall a man be dragged back to Slavery from our Free Soil, without an open trial of his right to Liberty?" —Handbill circulated in Milwaukee on March 11, 1854
In Finding Freedom, Ruby West Jackson and Walter T. McDonald provide readers with the first narrative account of the life of Joshua Glover, the runaway slave who was famously broken out of jail by thousands of Wisconsin abolitionists in 1854. Employing original research, the authors chronicle Glover's days as a slave in St. Louis, his violent capture and thrilling escape in Milwaukee, his journey on the Underground Railroad, and his 33 years of freedom in rural Canada.
While Jackson and McDonald demonstrate how the catalytic "Glover incident" captured national attention—pitting the proud state of Wisconsin against the Supreme Court and adding fuel to the pre-Civil War fire—their primary focus is on the ordinary citizens, both black and white, with whom Joshua Glover interacted. A bittersweet story of bravery and compassion, Finding Freedom provides the first full picture of the man for whom so many fought, and around whom so much history was made.
Ruby West Jackson has worked as a teacher and lecturer, community activist, and costumed interpreter of pioneer black women in Wisconsin. A recipient of the National Parks Service Network to Freedom Award, she has served as the African American History Coordinator for the Wisconsin Historical Society and has written and consulted frequently on black history and slave stories.
Walter T. McDonald spent fifty years as a forensic psychologist. Over the course of his thirty-year collaboration with Ms. Jackson, Dr. McDonald has mapped underground railroad routes into and out of Wisconsin and served as a script consultant for Rope of Sand, a play about Joshua Glover and the Fugitive Slave Act commissioned by the Wisconsin Supreme Court for its sesquicentennial.
- Authors: Ruby West Jacksong, Walter T. McDonald
- Hardcover: 176 pages
- Dimensions: 14 x 2 x 21.6 cm
- Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society Press; 1 edition (May 1 2007)