From KERA News:
Henry “Box” Brown’s idea to ship his way to freedom might have been the most successful disappearing act of all time.
In 1849, the formerly enslaved man embarked on a 27-hour journey from a slave state, Virginia, to a free state, Pennsylvania, in a wooden crate. He had only biscuits and water to sustain him.
“He’s one of those people who wasn’t necessarily talked about in great detail in our history classes or even during Black History Month,” said playwright Jarrett King.
“Oftentimes when we think about Henry ‘Box’ Brown, we know just the one sentence about him, that he mailed himself to freedom.”
King’s play, Box, tells Brown’s story with one major embellishment. In a story as extraordinary as Brown’s it can be hard to sort fact from fiction. Here’s a quick primer.
Brown really was a professional magician.
Brown learned magic tricks from another enslaved person as a child as a form of entertainment. As a free man, Brown performed magic tricks and also gave speeches about abolition and his hard-fought journey to freedom.
His crate was turned on its side, upside down and used as a seat.
Brown’s box was labeled “This side up with care,” but those instructions were not closely followed. Brown spent a portion of his journey right-side up but, in his memoir, he also described being turned on his side, upside down and used as a seat at various points.
Brown moved to London.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 threatened Brown, and other formerly enslaved people in the north, with being removed and returned to the slave owners they’d fled. So Brown moved to England, which passed a measure to abolish slavery in 1833. It was there that he met and married his second wife, Jane Floyd. The family eventually moved back to the United States and then Canada.
Brown was never reunited with his first wife, Sara.
Brown’s memoir outlines his attempts to prevent his wife being sold to another slave owner, but he was unsuccessful. The pair never reunited.
This is where King’s play takes some liberties. The script imagines what if Brown had reunited with his first wife after he married someone else?
The big reveal can be seen at Undermain Theatre, 3200 Main St., Dallas, through March 23.
Arts Access is an arts journalism collaboration powered by The Dallas Morning News and KERA.
This community-funded journalism initiative is funded by the Better Together Fund, Carol & Don Glendenning, City of Dallas OAC, The University of Texas at Dallas, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Eugene McDermott Foundation, James & Gayle Halperin Foundation, Jennifer & Peter Altabef and The Meadows Foundation. The News and KERA retain full editorial control of Arts Access’ journalism.
