CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The story of black presence in America is as rich and about as old as America itself. From the lesser known names like the Bucks of America, who defended Boston during the American Revolution, to Mum Bett, the slave who sued her slave owner and won her freedom — plus back wages — in 1781. And it continues on to the better known names of former slaves and abolitionists like Lewis Hayden and Frederick Douglass. Now add this name: Mary Walker. Walker was an enslaved woman who fled north to freedom and ended up owning one of the more famous houses in the Boston area. It’s one of the best known houses on Brattle Street in Cambridge, in the heart of Harvard Square, immortalized in poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who lived not far away. (via Harvard Square’s Blacksmith House Has Untold Connection To Runaway Slave | WBUR)
Mary Walker, born a slave in Durham County, North Carolina. In 1848, she escaped from the state’s wealthiest slave-holding family, the Camerons of Raleigh.
(via minorjive)
