How could five boys, walking free in Philadelphia in the summer of 1825, be kidnapped, forced into the hold of a boat, chained and beaten, brought to the Eastern Shore, and then transported south?Historian Richard Bell, chronicled how the boys were enslaved, and how that happened to thousands of other free African Americans--what he calls the Reverse Underground Railroad. Most who were snatched never saw their families again. But something surprising happened in this case, laid out in Bell’s book, ----Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home----.Bell will be at the Ivy Bookshop tomorrow at 7 pm. Details here. On November 16th, he will be at Politics and Prose in DC. Information here. Other upcoming events are listed here.

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