by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)
Today’s GBN Daily Drop Podcast for Monday, February 21, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 format. It’s about Ona “Oney” Judge, who was enslaved by George Washington and Martha Washington, escaped and despite Washington’s position of power as President, was never caught.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Monday, February 21th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing. Today, on President’s Day, we are honoring someone who was all too familiar with America’s first president George Washington — and her name was Ona “Oney” Judge.
Ona “Oney” Judge knew there was no time like dinnertime to make her escape. Enslaved by President George Washington and his wife, Martha, in 1796 Judge secretly booked passage on a boat and left the then capital, Philadelphia, as the Washingtons ate, determined not to return to their plantation in Mount Vernon and remain enslaved.
Judge hid in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, by then a free state, and as president, Washington knew the scrutiny would be bad if he used a slave catcher. Instead, he sent emissaries after her three times, but Judge refused to return.
Though she was technically was still a fugitive when Washington died in 1799, she was finally left alone, free and “never caught.” On February 25, 2008, Philadelphia celebrated the first “Oney Judge Day” at the President’s House site.
To learn more about Judge, read the 2018 book Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar or the 2020 children’s book Never Caught, the Story of Ona Judge: George and Martha Washington’s Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away; Young Readers Edition, also by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, you can watch the Museum of the American Revolution’s Ona Judge Virtual Tour on YouTube or check out the links to other sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
I also want to take a second to make a personal note that whenever I’m presenting anything I will say “an enslaved person” or “people” because no one was born a slave and that’s a status that’s put upon them by society. But if it’s the term like “slave catcher” or it’s a title of a book I will say what is written. Other than that though? “Enslaved person, enslaved people.” Happy President’s Day.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. Additional music included and permitted under Public Domain license was “Stars and Stripes Forever” composed by John Philip Sousa.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Sources:
- https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/ona-judge-escapes/
- https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/ona-judge/
- https://www.nps.gov/articles/independence-oneyjudge.htm
- https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-remarkable-story-of-ona-judge
- https://youtu.be/O9qf6WWc6QU (Mount Vernon video on Judge)
(paid links)
