Slave Stealers: True Accounts of Slave Rescues-then and Now
About this book
Told in alternating chapters from perspectives spanning more than a century apart of two people who fought one of the most shockingly persistent evils of the slave trafficking and sexual exploitation of slaves— told from the of both 19th century perspective of Harriet Jacobs and modern-day story of Timothy Ballard.Harriet Jacobs was an African-American, born into slavery in North Carolina in 1813. She thwarted the sexual advances of her master for years until she escaped and hid in the attic crawlspace of her grandmother's house for seven years before escaping north to freedom. She published an autobiography of her life, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, which was one of the first open discussions about sexual abuse endured by salve women. She was an active abolitionist, associated with Frederick Douglass and during the Civil War used her celebrity to raise money for black refugees. After the war she worked to improve the conditions of newly-freed slaves.As a former CIA agent who has seen the horrors and carnage of war, Timothy Ballard founded a modern-day “underground railroad” which has rescued hundreds of children from being fully enslaved, abused, or trafficked in third-world countries. The story includes the rescue and his eventual adoption of two young siblings—Mia and Marky who were born in Haiti.Section 2 features the lives of five abolitionists, a mix of heroes from past to present, who call us to action and teach us life lessons based on their own Harriet Tubman—The “Conductor”; Abraham Lincoln—the “Great Emancipator”; Little Mia—the sister who saved her little brother; Guesno Mardy—the Haitian father who lost his son to slave traders; and Harriet Jacobs—a teacher for us all.