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Posts tagged as “Martha Washington”

BHM 100: Ona “Oney” Judge – the Enslaved Woman Who Emancipated Herself as George Washington Ate Dinner

BHM 100: Ona “Oney” Judge – the Enslaved Woman Who Emancipated Herself as George Washington Ate Dinner

By goodblacknews on February 16, 2026

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson, GBN Editor-in-Chief

On Presidents Day, we are honoring someone who was all too familiar with the United States’ first president George Washington — her name was Ona “Oney” Judge.

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 nation’s then capital, Philadelphia, as the Washingtons ate their supper, determined not to return to their plantation in Mount Vernon and remain enslaved.

Judge hid in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (by then a free state). As president of a nation that just attained its freedom from the British, Washington knew he might face serious criticism and scrutiny if he used a slave catcher to recapture Judge. Instead, he used advertisements and sent emissaries after her three times, but Judge refused to return.

An ad from Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser on May 26, 1796, offering a reward for the return of Ona Judge.

Though she  technically was still a fugitive when Washington died in 1799, she was finally left alone, free and remained “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 Mount Vernon video on Ona Judge.

Sources:

GBN’s Daily Drop: Ona “Oney” Judge – the Enslaved Woman Who Escaped as George Washington Ate (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Ona “Oney” Judge – the Enslaved Woman Who Escaped as George Washington Ate (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on February 21, 2022

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.

You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

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:

(paid links)

‘Ask A Slave’ Web Series Creator Azie Mira Dungey Uses Satire To Educate the Ignorant About Slavery

By goodblacknews on September 5, 2013
ask a slave
Playing the role of a slave woman at one of the country’s top-tourist destinations, actress and comedian Azie Mira Dungey learned first hand how ignorant many Americans are about the institution of slavery.  For two years, Dungey worked part-time at George Washington‘s Mount Vernon mansion in Mount Vernon, Va., often portraying one of the slave women who worked inside of Washington’s home. The role required her to read countless books on the plantation’s history over a two month period before she started the job.
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Once she stepped into character, Dungey realized that she was more than just a recent New York University graduate milling around in a short-term gig until Hollywood called; instead, Dungey believed that she was something of a griot of Black history and took her role very seriously.
And her job wasn’t easy. Often, Dungey has had to answer challenging questions from mostly White tourists — all while staying in character.
During an exclusive interview with NewsOne, Dungey recalled the time someone asked, “What’s your favorite part of the plantation?” (Her answer: “My bed”) Then there was the guy who asked, “How did you get to be the house maid for such a distinguished Founding Father? Did you see the advertisement in the newspaper?”

(Her answer: “Did I read the advertisement in the newspaper? Why yes. It said, ‘Wanted: One housemaid. No pay, preferably mulatto, saucy with breeding hips. Must work 18 hours a day. No holidays. But, you get to wear a pretty dress. And, if you’re lucky, you might to get carry some famous White man’s bastard child.’ So, you better believe I read that, ran over and said, ‘sign me up.’” ).
But not all of the obtuse questions came from White people.
After speaking to an older Black man about a runaway slave who attempted to flee Washington’s plantation, the man seemed shocked at the slave’s attempt at freedom. “He was like, ‘Wait a minute, why did he want to run away?’” Dungey recalls the man asking. “‘I thought that George Washington was a good slave owner.’”
“I just looked at him, like, Are you serious?… You can be the nicest in the world but people don’t want to be your slave. And the man was like, ‘Yeah, that’s true.’”
As aforementioned, though, as comical as some of the questions were, Dungey never broke character. Dungey was committed to ensuring that she conveyed the reality in which her character lived. In her role, Dungey realized that she may be one of the few people from whom they can get some sense of how Blacks lived during a very repressive period in American history.
“History is our narrative,” she said. “It shapes what we think of ourselves and our society. How it is controlled, and whose stories get told (or not told) has a strong effect on culture, and even on public policy. Black history is not a separate history or a less important one. Misconceptions about Black history and the modern Black experience is really dividing us politically and socially. If we don’t understand racism and where it comes from, how can we end it? How can we weed it out? We have to be critical of these things to make true progress.”
She left that job late last year and has since moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, but the two-year experience motivated her to turn the hilarity of the tourists’ ignorance into the YouTube web series “Ask A Slave.” As “Lizzie Mae,” Dungey sits in front of a TV and answers viewers’ questions about slavery and George Washington.
All of the questions are ones tourists actually asked while she was working at Mount Vernon.
Watch Episode 1 of “Ask A Slave” here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1IYH_MbJqA&w=420&h=315]

Since going live with two videos Sept. 1, the first episode has garnered more than 301,100 views, while the second episode has more than 119,000 views. It’s not a bad start at all, especially considering that Dungey raised the funds for production herself.
Watch Episode 2 of “Ask A Slave” here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEaNduN88DQ&w=420&h=315]

Back in April, she raised $3,000 through the crowdsourcing site GoFundMe to shoot six episodes, which will be published on YouTube each Sunday. The series was directed by Jordan Black, creator of the improvised comedy web series “The Black Version.”  The first two episodes have gotten positive reviews from Jezebel, MadameNoire, as well as other sites, with Gawker’s Neetzan Zimmerman calling it “the best web series since “Drunk History.”