CW: Slavery, War, Guns/Gunshot Wounds, General Violence, Poverty
In our first non cult-based episode this Black History Month, we talk about heroes who fought for their, and others, freedom against huge odds and touched lives through history. Since you’ve been listening to a lot of cult content lately and had several small episodes lately, here’s a longer episode with three stories of amazing people who steer themselves head first into danger for freedom, who use intelligence and stealth to turn the tides of a war, and who singlehandedly held the line against a troop of enemy soldiers.
This is a very cut and dry article about Robert Smalls from the US government about his life and what he accomplished with it.
This one is written more like a story and includes a lot of quotes from people’s journals during the time when these events were taking place, including from Robert himself.
This is a great article that describes in detail what little we know about Mary Jane Richards, aka Mary Elizabeth Bowser and her efforts as a spy for the Union army during the Civil War.
This article is a great look at what Mary was possibly doing after the Civil War. Like any spy, her life was a mystery after the war because the records of her were destroyed, but there are quotes in here from letters she wrote.
This link is directly from the Army where you’ll get a cut and dry story of Henry Johnson and the Harlem Hellfighters and the absolutely wild way he alone held back the enemy troops one night in France. It also have lots of other pictures and resources about Henry and about the Harlem Hellfighters themselves.
This is a much shorter summary of what Henry accomplished in what the media called at the time “The Battle of Henry Johnson.”
This is a longer account of what Henry did with his life before and after WW1 plus lots of cool pictures and info about the Harlem Hellfighters!
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