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Posts tagged as “President’s Day”

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.

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MUSIC: Happy Birthdays, Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight! GBN Celebrates Two Soul Legends On Their 80th

MUSIC: Happy Birthdays, Patti LaBelle and Gladys Knight! GBN Celebrates Two Soul Legends On Their 80th

By goodblacknews on May 26, 2024

by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)

Here at Good Black News, we’ve decided to have some fun and make up a new holiday.

With Patti LaBelle (born May 24th) and her good friend and Gemini sister Gladys Knight (born May 28th) both turning 80 over this long weekend, we’re thinking the perfect date is May 26th.

In much the same way that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays were lumped together to create President’s Day in February, we’re launching… Legendary Divas Day!

Certainly, Divas need their own day.

May 26th splits the difference between Patti’s and Gladys’ birthdates and gives us a perfect reason to share a great diva playlist every Memorial Day weekend (future Legendary Diva Days can be celebrated the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend).

LaBelle and Knight are two iconic singers who hold a special place in our collective hearts – they have provided the soundtracks to the lives of multiple generations of fans, with bodies of work to prove it.

But for our world today, they are more than just singers – they are an entire community’s beloved aunties and grandmas. They keep it fun and current by going on shows like “Dancing with the Stars” and “The Masked Singer” (Gladys was robbed on that first season, I tell you), and with cookbooks and Wal-Mart pies. They take care of us just through their being.

To honor their birthdays this weekend, GBN has put together a playlist comprising not 80 songs, but 180 songs that bounce back and forth between Gladys and Patti!

We journey through their 60+ year recording careers with the hits, the duets, the deep cuts, the standards and the spirit.

To be completely transparent, we took the bones of this playlist from a prior one we shared around the time of Gladys’ and Patti’s Verzuz song battle program during the pandemic – and we’ve dramatically expanded it to its new form.

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.

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