Thomas Smallwood has been a “lost” hero of the underground railroad for over 100 years. Born into slavery in 1801, Smallwood bought his freedom, educated himself, and operated a shoemaking business near the Navy Yard. Then in 1842, Smallwood along with a young white partner began organizing escapes for wagonloads of enslaved people from slavery's borderland. Adding insult to the financial loss inflicted on slave owners by the escapes, Smallwood wrote extraordinary satirical dispatches about the escapes for an Albany, NY, abolitionist newspaper.
The story of this remarkable man and the perilous times in which both free and enslaved black people lived was presentedby Scott Shane, author of the recently published Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery’s Borderland. Shane, a reporter for 15 years at the New York Times where he was a member of two teams that won Pulitzer prizes, was previously a reporter for the Baltimore Sun and is author of two other books and numerous articles.
