In late 1851, the young Parker sisters–black, free, and working for white families–were kidnapped from Chester County, PA by a man who supplemented his career as a mail carrier with slave catching. The girls were eventually rescued through the efforts of the largely white farming communities of Chester County, but not before one of the girls had been shipped to New Orleans and sold as a slave.
Through the story of the Parker sisters, author Lucy Maddox provides a window into the constantly threatened lives of free black people living in the border states before the Civil War, as well as highlighting how slavery affected many small communities, sometimes bringing white and black people together in surprising ways.
The talk will be followed by a book signing. A limited number of copies will be available for sale with profits benefitting the Kent County Public Library.
Lucy Maddox is Professor Emerita of English and American Studies at Georgetown University. She is the author of Removals: Nineteenth-Century American Literature and the Politics of Indian Affairs and Citizen Indians: Native American Intellectuals, Race, and Reform.
For more information, visit kentcountylibrary.org or call 410.778.3636.
Wednesday, November 16 | 6pm
Chestertown Branch
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