Seven thrilling tales that upturn what we know about Black history

Susanna Ashton teaches at Clemson University in South Carolina. A former Fellow at both Yale and Harvard as well as a Fulbright scholar, her work has appeared in both scholarly and popular venues, usually chewing on ideas about paperwork, archives, and 19th-century freedoms. Her series on fugitivity and runaways can be found at The Runaway Chronicles.

Ashton is the author of A Plausible Man: The True Story of the Escaped Slave Who Inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

At Electric Lit Ashton tagged seven "books that model new ways to see Black history and American history, with all of its beauty and cruelty, afresh." One title on the list:

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo

First off, props to such a compelling title. The Crafts’ story is well known to scholars, but Woo’s fresh retelling of their tale is riveting. Step by step, she tracks how Ellen and William Craft, an enslaved couple in Georgia whose union was not recognized by any court of law at that time, maneuvered one of the most audacious escapes imaginable. Light-skinned Ellen disguised herself as a genteel white man in poor health, traveling North for treatment with his dark-skinned slave—her husband, William, in disguise as her captive. Hiding in plain sight, the couple braved inquisitive hotel guests and pushy railway passengers. Ellen even put her arm in a sling to justify avoiding hotel desk registries—as she was illiterate and would have been found out when presented with a pen.

Once north in New England, the Crafts’ troubles were not over: they had to evade recapture and make their way to Canada, and eventually, now facing international celebrity status, they found an uneasy sanctuary in England. The Crafts’ ambitions were often at odds with the aims of the Anti-Slavery organizations and white patrons they were surrounded by. And sometimes, their wishes were not in concert with those of their activist friends, such as fellow fugitive William Wells Brown, who sought to keep them in the public eye even when they were hoping to settle down more quietly. But the couple held onto each other, and in an astonishing twist rarely seen in such life stories, they boldly chose to return to Georgia some years after the Civil War. Woo lets their story unfold in their own words at times, drawing from their memoirs and interviews. But she also builds out their story in the broader context and conversations around fugitivity and freedom. Taut and tense, Master Slave Husband Wife is a story of flipping gender, race, and power politics upside-down in the pursuit of freedom fueled by love.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue