Finding Freedom

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The Untold Story of Joshua Glover, Freedom Seeker

Ruby West Jackson and Walter T. McDonald

Foreword by Christy Clark-Pujara

A bittersweet story, full of bravery and compassion, of a man fighting for his freedom and the community that rallied behind him.

178 pages, 6 x 9, 11 b&w photos
Paperback: $20.00 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-955-0
Ebook: $15.99 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-995-6
Publication Date: 11/23/2022

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Description

On March 11, 1854, thousands of abolitionists gathered outside the Milwaukee Courthouse, outraged by the beating, capture, and jailing of freedom seeker Joshua Glover. Glover, who had lived and worked in Racine, Wisconsin, for two years after fleeing bondage, had little hope for freedom if he went before a judge. Instead, abolitionists broke down the jail’s door and, through the Underground Railroad, spirited him away to eventual freedom in Canada. But this was never the full story.

In this groundbreaking book, authors Ruby West Jackson and Walter T. McDonald chronicle Glover’s life and spotlight the people, both Black and white, with whom he interacted. They explore his days as an enslaved person in St. Louis, his violent capture and escape in Milwaukee, his journey on the Underground Railroad, and his thirty-three years of freedom in rural Canada.

While the “Glover incident” captured national attention—pitting the state of Wisconsin against the Supreme Court and adding fuel to the pre–Civil War fire—it is also the story of one man who was determined to live his life unbound. With a foreword by historian Christy Clark-Pujara, Finding Freedom provides the first full picture of the man for whom so many fought and around whom so much history was made.

Author Bios

Ruby West Jackson

The great-granddaughter of enslaved people, Ruby West Jackson worked as a teacher and lecturer, community activist, and costumed interpreter of pioneer Black women in Wisconsin. A recipient of the National Parks Service Network to Freedom Award, she served as the African American History Coordinator for the Wisconsin Historical Society and wrote and consulted frequently on Black history.

Walter T. McDonald

Walter T. McDonald worked for fifty years as a forensic psychologist. Over the course of his thirty-year collaboration with Ruby West Jackson, McDonald mapped Underground Railroad routes into and out of Wisconsin and served as a script consultant for Rope of Sand, a play about Joshua Glover.

Joshua Glover’s escape, capture, and rescue serves as a stark reminder that the experiences of Black people in the Midwest have often been forgotten by the general public and long neglected by historians.