Richard Bell (University of Maryland) will present his new book STOLEN: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home.

Philadelphia, 1825: five young, free black boys fall into the clutches of the most fearsome gang of kidnappers and slavers in the United States. Determined to resist, the boys form a tight brotherhood as they struggle to free themselves and find their way home. Their ordeal shines a glaring spotlight on the Reverse Underground Railroad, a black market network of human traffickers and slave traders who stole away thousands of free African Americans from their families in order to fuel slavery’s rapid expansion in the decades before the Civil War.

There is a pre-talk reception at 5:30. Please follow the ticketing link to register.