January 15, 2023

In 1848 Ellen Craft, an enslaved woman in Macon, Georgia, feared that her father – who was her White enslaver – would claim any child she bore as his property. And so, she and her husband, also enslaved, embarked on a remarkable ruse: Fleeing the South, she masqueraded as a male White slaveowner accompanied by “his” slave.

Correspondent Mark Whitaker talks with Ilyon Woo, author of “Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom,” and with Peggy Preacely, the couple’s great-great-granddaughter.

Peggy Preacely, an advocate of the civil rights movement in the 1960’s and a poet, is an active member at Holman UMC.