A letter that helped to convict a Nazi war criminal… A squeegee handle that saved the lives of half a dozen people on 9/11… A set of stairs that saved hundreds more… These ordinary objects played a role in some extraordinary stories. These stories are also some...
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind but now I see. Chances are, you have heard these lyrics many times. These are the words from "Amazing Grace," one of the greatest songs of all time. What you...
Frederick Douglass, the famed orator and abolitionist, saw his life change in one afternoon in 1833. Learn about his incredible battle with an overseer--a struggle that changed a slave into a man, he said. Click on the link below, and you can watch our second "History...
Happy Henry Day! This week marks the 166th anniversary of Henry Brown's amazing escape from slavery. On March 23, 1849, Henry Brown was sealed inside a wooden box, 3 feet by 2 feet by 2-1/2 feet in size. Then he was shipped from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia--a...
Sojourner Truth was once told that if she dared to preach, the building where she spoke would be burned. The famous abolitionist responded, "Then I will speak to the ashes." You gotta love it. This past weekend, actress Jennifer Goran and I encountered Sojourner Truth...
In the very early hours of May 13, 1862, a slave named Robert Smalls decided to make his move. Smalls had worked his way up to becoming a wheelman--a pilot--and the Confederates used him to steer the CSS Planter, an armed Rebel military transport during the Civil War....
Edna Greene Medford became a historian at a time when the legacy of Abraham Lincoln had lost some of its luster in the African American community. So she said she never had any plans to specialize on Lincoln. But Professor Medford can credit C-SPAN for changing those...
My two worlds converged recently. In my world as a writer for the University of Illinois College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, I recently did a story about the "Myth of Black Confederates"--a subject that directly applied to my other world as a writer of historical...
I am thrilled to announce that a New York film and television company has purchased the screenplay of The Disappearing Man, with the goal of bringing Henry "Box" Brown's story to the screen. Many people have told me that my novels read like movies, so it is only...
Timothy Webster, the most famous spy during the first year of the Civil War, first encountered the Lincoln League when he was taken to a secluded hideout in the woods. He was taken there by the African American spy, John Scobell--the hero of my new novel, The Lincoln...