On May 8, 1858, two major milestones in Black history and the fight against slavery occurred. In Chatham, Ontario, radical abolitionist John Brown convened a secret antislavery convention attended by twelve white and thirty-four Black delegates. There, Brown presented his revolutionary plan to establish a free state for formerly enslaved people and proposed his “Provisional Constitution” — laying the ideological groundwork for the later raid on Harpers Ferry.

That same year, abolitionist and author William Wells Brown, a formerly enslaved man, published The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom, the first play ever written by a Black American. Blending narrative drama with social critique, Brown’s work was a bold literary step toward shaping African American theatrical expression and advancing the abolitionist message through art.