Ilyon Woo's new book, "Master Slave Husband Wife," tells the story of William and Ellen Craft, an enslaved couple that fled Macon, Georgia and traveled all the way to freedom in Philadelphia. The Crafts made their journey on public trains, with Ellen disguised as a rich, white man afflicted with rheumatism.
In 'Master Slave Husband Wife,' Ilyon Woo follows a wife and husband who escaped by posing as a white man and his caretaker, then fought for abolition.
In 1848 Ellen Craft, an enslaved woman in Macon, Georgia (whose father was her White enslaver), embarked on a remarkable ruse: Fleeing the South with her enslaved husband, she masqueraded as a male White slaveowner accompanied by "his" slave.