It Took One of the Craziest Games of All Time With baseball's All-Star game just around the corner, I can't resist a bit of baseball history--one of the most bizarre games in the long history of the game. I am a White Sox fan, but this game involved the...
If Only Henry Brown Had a Computer Game... I couldn't resist this curious bit of news. A friend recently sent me an article about a man who is shipping himself in a box from Bald Knob, Arkansas, to Portland, Oregon, beginning July 7. That's right: A seven-day...
When Western Illinois Tried to Split From the Union Some have described it as our 51st state. But others have called it a republic, which tried to secede from the Union in 1971. Whatever it was, state or republic, people knew it as Forgottonia. Forgottonia was...
Going Out on a Limb to Stop a Fast-Growing Crime: Modern Slavery Miller McKim would never forget the day that a Richmond shoemaker named Samuel Smith showed up at his Philadelphia office with a most improbable proposal. He wanted to ship a human being--a slave...
Free Blacks Lived on the Edge Between Slavery and Freedom When Henry Brown arrived in Richmond in 1830 at the age of 15, the city boasted a population of roughly 16,000--half of which were African-American. There were 6,345 slaves in Richmond, but there were...
Big Brother Takes a Big Hit in 1989 George Orwell didn't quite get it right. His landmark novel, 1984, describes the 1980s as a time in which Big Brother is all-seeing and all-controlling. Little did he know that the 1980s would be better known for taking Big Brother...
The Clothing of Slaves Bloomed on Sundays Henry's face lit up when he spotted the mystery girl coming straight toward them, with a friend flanking her on either side--all of them carrying white parasols and all wearing flowered and feathered bonnets. The girl's bonnet...
Slave Patrols and Passes Aimed to Keep Slaves Under Control Henry made his way north through the dark alleys behind the buildings along Fourteenth Street. The darkness was heavy like a tomb, giving Henry a dread sense of confinement. It was a closing in, a boxing in,...
How the Church Helped Bring Down the Berlin Wall With the last name of "Fuhrer,"Â he made an unlikely German hero. His full name was Christian Fuhrer, and this pastor led a movement that helped to bring down East Germany and the Berlin Wall. They called it "the...
Canton, Ohio, Embraces The Disappearing Man There's something about Ohio. Cincinnati, Ohio, is home of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, where I first discovered the story of Henry "Box"Â Brown and his incredible escape from slavery. Now, Canton,...