The summer of 2020 was not the first time America saw protests and violence over the treatment of African Americans. An account on April 19, 1848, of the Pearl’s capture appearing in The Daily Union newspaper of Washington, D.C. Library of Congress
Long before the demonstrations over Black Lives Matter, long before the marches of the civil rights era, strife over racism convulsed the nation’s capital. But those riots in Washington, D.C., were led by proslavery mobs.
In the spring of 1848, conspirators orchestrated one of the largest escapes from slavery in U.S. history. In doing so, they sparked a crisis that entangled advocates for slavery’s abolition, white supremacists, the press and even the president.