Book Club: Never Caught

Join us for coffee, conversation, and community as we discuss Erica Armstrong Dunbar's Never Caught on Wednesday, June 24th at 1:00pm.

Armstrong's account of the life of Ona Judge is especially prescient as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States this summer amidst the fight to retain the monument to Judge and others at the President's House site in Philadelphia; the plaque commemorating Judge's story was briefly removed by the current presidential administration in early 2026 because it "inappropriately disparage[d] Americans past." Join us to hear the true story, steeped in research and historical documentation, of Ona Judge and the Washingtons. Available wherever books are sold and from the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Erica Armstrong Dunbar is a Professor of History at Rutgers University. Never Caught was a finalist for the National Book Award Finalist, the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, and more. It is also available in a young readers edition.

When the Washingtons moved from Mount Vernon in Virginia to Philadelphia, then the seat of the nationa's capital, they took nine enslaved people with them. They would serve as cooks and horsemen, as house servants and personal attendants.

The North was different for the entire household. Indeed, there was even a Pennsylvania law requiring slaveholders to free their slaves after six months. Yet George Washington thought he could outwit and circumvent the law by sending his slaves south every six months, thereby resetting the clock. Ona Judge, Martha Washington's chief attendant, figured out the subterfuge and risked everything in search of freedom.

This is the story not only of the powerful lure of liberty but also of George Washington's determination to recapture his property by whatever means necessary. Never Caught is an important new work on one of the world's most celebrated families, and is the only book that examines the life of an eighteenth-century fugitive woman in intricate detail. Never Caught is a must-read for anyone interested in American history.

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