Post: Imagine surviving the auction block, escaping the dogs, crossing the swamps and rivers by foot. And...
Imagine surviving the auction block, escaping the dogs, crossing the swamps and rivers by foot. And just when you think you're free, you realize all you did was trade a plantation for a different kind of prison. That's what it meant to escape slavery into another part of America. So folks kept going because freedom didn't start until they crossed into Canada. We have to stop acting. My crossing over into a free state actually meant anything, because it didn't. The Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty made sure of that. If you were enslaved and escaped to a free state, you were still property on paper. Which meant you could be captured, dragged back, beaten, or even on alive. And it would all be legal, not by slave catchers, but by law enforcement. The same people who claim to believe in freedom. So when black folks do, they kept moving. They didn't stop in Pennsylvania or Ohio. They didn't breathe until they crossed into Canada. Because that was the first place where US law couldn't follow them. Now, let's be real. Canada wasn't perf picked it. Had it's own racism, his own segregated schools, it's own gatekeeping. But Canada also had one thing that America didn't legal protection. After eighteen thirty four, when Britain abolished slavery throughout it's empire, Canada became a place where the moment Your foot hit the ground. You could no longer be claimed, bought, or returned. That what made it special. That's why the Underground railroad didn't stop until you were outside of the US, Because inside the US you are still a target, even if you ran five hundred miles. So people fled, not just individuals, whole families, whole communities. They built towns like Buxton and Amherstburg, open schools, planet churches, and belt free black towns from scratch, all while the country that enslaved them kept pretending that it was the land of liberty. Most of the enslaved people who escape didn't just want distance, They want protection, and America never offered that. So they ran past the U. S. Constitution, past the stars and stripes, and straight into the arms of a place where being blacked at an automatically mean bondage. It wasn't that Canada was perfect, it's that America was never safe. And when freedom is something that you have to outrun a nation to find, that should tell you everything you need to know. Share, believe, inspire blacks, be.
Post: Imagine surviving the auction block, escaping the dogs, crossing the swamps and rivers by foot. And...: Imagine surviving the auction block, escaping the dogs, crossing the swamps and rivers by foot. And just when you think you're… #GAMESEVEN #survivingauction #auctionblock #blockescaping
