It was Saturday, May 21, 1796, when a young woman named Ona Judge — a slave in President George Washington’s official residence in Philadelphia — took what historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar calls “that final step” toward freedom.
“She ran away from the president’s house while the Washingtons were eating dinner,” said Dunbar, who is the Blue and Gold Distinguished Professor of Black American Studies and History at the University of Delaware. “And she would never return to that home.”
Dunbar tells Judge’s story in a new book, Never Caught, published Feb. 7 by Atria Books. Based on years of research, the book recounts Judge’s remarkable life and the lengths to which George and Martha Washington went in attempting to recapture her.