WHenry Walton Bibb was an American author and abolitionist who was born a slave. After escaping from slavery to Canada, he founded an abolitionist newspaper, The Voice of the Fugitive. He returned to the US and lectured against slavery.
WBlack Nova Scotians or African Nova Scotians are Black Canadians whose ancestors primarily date back to the Colonial United States as enslave peoples or freemen, and later arrived in Nova Scotia, Canada during the 18th and early 19th centuries. As of the 2016 Census of Canada, 21,915 Black people live in Nova Scotia, most in Halifax. Since the 1950s, numerous Black Nova Scotians have migrated to Toronto for its larger range of opportunities. Before the immigration reforms of the 1960s, Black Nova Scotians formed 37% of the total Black Canadian population.
WAnthony Burns was a fugitive slave whose recapturing, extradition, and court case led to wide-scale public outcries of injustice, and ultimately, increased opposition to slavery by Northerners.
WJoshua Glover was a fugitive slave from St. Louis, Missouri who sought asylum in Racine, Wisconsin in 1852. Upon learning his whereabouts in 1854, slave owner Bennami Garland attempted to use the Fugitive Slave Act to recover him. Glover was captured and taken to a Milwaukee jail. On March 18, 1854 a mob incited by Sherman Booth broke into the jail and rescued Glover, who was taken secretly to Port Washington, Wisconsin, from where he traveled by boat to Canada. The rescue of Glover and the federal government's subsequent attempt to prosecute Booth helped to galvanize the abolitionist movement in the state that eventually led to Wisconsin becoming the only state to declare the act unconstitutional.
WThe Jerry Rescue occurred on October 1, 1851, and involved the public rescue of a fugitive slave who had been arrested the same day in Syracuse, New York, during the anti-slavery Liberty Party's state convention. The escaped slave was William Henry, a 40-year-old cooper from Missouri who called himself "Jerry."
WShadrach Minkins was an African-American fugitive slave from Virginia who escaped in 1850 and reached Boston. He also used the pseudonyms Frederick Wilkins and Frederick Jenkins. He is known for being freed from a courtroom in Boston after being captured by United States marshals under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Members of the Boston Vigilance Committee freed and hid him, helping him get to Canada via the Underground Railroad. Minkins settled in Montreal, where he raised a family. Two men were prosecuted in Boston for helping free him, but they were acquitted by the jury.
WRabbit Richards is a New York-born performance poet who has been based out of Montreal for several years. Their stories and poetry blend the politics of race, love and gender with the emotional grounding of lived experience. They are a member of the Kalmunity Vibe Collective and a practiced improvisational artist. Richards is also the two time captain of Montreal’s Throw Poetry Collective.
WAbraham Doras Shadd (1801–1882), was a free African-American abolitionist and civil rights activist who emigrated to Ontario, Canada, and would later become one of Canada's first black elected officials. He was also the father of prominent activist and publisher Mary Ann Shadd.
WAnna Maria Weems was an American woman known for escaping slavery by disguising herself as a male carriage driver and escaping to Canada, where her family was settled with other slave fugitives.