In the opening scene of my novel, The Disappearing Man, Henry Brown is running for his life from slave patrollers in the middle of the night on the streets of Richmond. He winds up hiding behind a monument at a church, on which are inscribed 72 names. Those 72 people...
My new novel, The Vanishing Woman, has just come off the press--although I haven't received my copies just yet. The Vanishing Woman is based on the incredible true story of Ellen Craft, a light-skinned slave who escaped in 1848 by posing as a white man. She couldn't...
Ted Johnson, a wonderful actor I got to visit with at this year's Gideon Media Arts Conference, plays a small but very important role in the upcoming Stephen Spielberg movie, Lincoln. He has pointed out an excellent Entertainment Weekly article that goes through the...
The fence you see in these photos has to be the wickedest looking fence I have ever laid eyes upon. It is perhaps the most dangerous non-electrified fence in the country. My wife and I encountered this fence last spring during our walking tour in Charleston, South...
Elijah Lovejoy's Last Stand Mobs had already destroyed Elijah Lovejoy's printing press three times, and they were aiming for a fourth time in November of 1837. Lovejoy, a Presbyterian minister, had riled up people in St. Louis for his abolitionist views in his...
Canton Actors Bring a Remarkable Couple to Life When a friend first approached Roslyn Pratt about playing Nancy Brown in the Canton film production of The Disappearing Man, her first reaction was "Oh no, you don't."Â Based on her extensive stage experience, Pratt...
Canton Group Brings The Disappearing Man to Life Furious, the overseer stepped away from Mamma and kicked up dust with his boot...Then he picked up a stick, a sturdy one, and circled Mamma like he would a dangerous dog. Henry had to act. He knew it now...The overseer...
Caldecott Honor Book Joins The Disappearing Man in Canton Festivities I first came across Henry Brown's incredible story while visiting Cincinnati for the premiere of the VeggieTales movie, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. At the time, I was a VeggieTales writer,...
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...