Webinar | August 23, 2025 | 7:00 p.m. EST
Since 2012, the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project (MPCPMP) has observed the United Nations-designated International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition. This year is no exception, as we host a remarkable conversation between two scholars and historians:
- Marcus Rediker, author and Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh, and
- Corey Walker, Dean of the School of Divinity and Professor of Humanities at Wake Forest University, and a member of the MPCPMP Advisory Board.
Freedom Ship: The Unchartered History of Escaping Slavery by Sea
Dr. Rediker and Dr. Walker have returned to the MPCPMP platforms to explore another chapter in the story of captive and enslaved Africans and their descendants. The subject of this webinar is Professor Rediker’s recently published book, Freedom Ship: The Unchartered History of Escaping Slavery by Sea, a “definitive, sweeping account of the Underground Railroad’s long-overlooked maritime origins.” Released in late spring of 2025, Freedom Ship describes the people, places, and routes to freedom on this nation’s waterways, expanding and transforming our understanding of those in flight, the hidden network, and those who aided them in their quests for freedom – dockworkers, sailors, sympathetic ship captains, and members of African American communities (Foner).
“Deeply researched and grippingly told, Freedom Ship offers a groundbreaking new look into the secret world of stowaways and the vessels that carried them to freedom across the North and into Canada. Sprawling through the intricate riverways of the Carolinas to the banks of the Chesapeake Bay to Boston’s harbors, these tales illuminate the little-known stories of freedom seekers who turned their sights to the sea.”
Please join us on Saturday, August 23, 2025, at 7:00 pm ET for a riveting discussion of this history. For more information or to purchase this book, visit: https://www.marcusrediker.com/books/freedom-ship/.
