OUT OF JAIL
The black man who was imprisoned for reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
I am asked to make an appeal for a poor man – a criminal, just out of jail. He was convicted for three offenses: — first, because a black skin covered his face; second, because the English alphabet came and sat upon his tongue; and third, because he had read the story of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
For these crimes he was tried and convicted by a Maryland Court in 1857, and sentenced to the Baltimore Penitentiary for ten years. After wearing out five years of this long penalty, the gate of his cell was opened a few weeks ago by the new Governor of Maryland, who told him that he might quite the jail, if he would quit also the United States. He immediately promised to go to Canada, and is now in New York on his way thither.
(Liberator, July 4, 1862, pg 4)
