Issue link: http://maconmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1498135
A THOUSAND MILES TO REDISCOVER OUR HISTORY EFFORTS AROUND THE WORLD HELP REIGNITE INTEREST IN ONE OF MACON'S GREATEST STORIES DURING OUR BICENTENNIAL YEAR BY MICHAEL W. PANNELL PAINTING BY RHONDA SUNSHINE MILLER The streets are familiar to us, routine really: Mulberry, Cotton, Fi h, Poplar. These are streets we walk on to grab a coffee, enjoy a meal, or see a show with friends and family. But on a December morning in 1848, these streets were anything but routine for married couple Ellen and William Cra . Carefully navigating toward Macon's train station before the city stirred awake, the Cra s felt terror, alongside the almost unimaginable hope, driving them on. Ellen and William were enslaved, and it was illegal for them to roam freely. Being discovered where they weren't supposed to be would have meant serious, torturous reprisal. If it was thought that they were traveling because they were trying to escape, it likely meant death. On that winter morning, just days before Christmas, the Cra s were doing just that. You've heard of escaped enslaved person turned abolitionist Harriet Tubman, one of the most famous figures in American history. Her name adorns the Tubman Museum of African American art, history, and culture at the end of Macon's Cherry Street. You've also likely heard of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. But what about Ellen and William Cra ? According to modern scholars, their descendants, and a growing number of authors and filmmakers, the Cra s were engaged in the most dramatic and widely known escape of their day. In their time, they were internationally famous because of it. The Cra s, little known by locals now, were Macon's own. They lived not so far down the street from you. That is, until the day they set out for freedom. 44 maconmagazine.com | APRIL/MAY 2023