Nidhi Shrivastava's Reviews > Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery's Borderland

I love book covers that are meaningful and thought-provoking. I also love it when they reference current or historical events. A little tidbit about the cover of Flee North: it’s a painting by Eastman Johnson, and depicts an enslaved family escaping to the Union lines during the civil war.

As someone who is passionate about history, I am always drawn to unsung heroes and people who have influenced and shaped the world. As such, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist, Scott Shane, tells a powerful story of an extraordinary abolitionist, liberator, and writer Thomas Smallwood who not only bought his own freedom, led hundreds out of slavery, and found the Underground Railroad.

Born into slavery, Thomas Smallwood was a self-educated, free man who was working as a shoe maker. After recruiting a young white activist, Charles Torrey, both men began organizing mass escapes from Washington, Baltimore, and other counties to freedom in the north. Ultimately, Smallwood begins documenting the escapes that he had planned in newspapers and calls slavery “the most inhuman system that ever blackened the pages of history.”

By calling attention to Thomas Smallwood, the author reminds us of the social and cultural attitudes that shaped the issue of racial inequality. As a system designed to dehumanize individuals, I wasn’t aware of the social, psychological or emotional impacts of slavery until we moved here and I learned about it in my high school days, and the Jim Crow laws, and the Civil Rights movement just indicate that the specter of slavery continues to haunt the American story.

Thank you @celadonbooks for the gifted arc!

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