Delaware to pardon man who guided slaves to freedom

[struggle4progress]

... “They uphold and applaud those slave traffickers, and those inhuman and unmerciful leeches, in their soul-damning conduct, by making the colored people legal subjects for their bloody principles to feast on,” wrote Burris, who was languishing in a Dover jail, in a letter published in a June 1848 edition of The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper.

On Monday morning, Delaware’s governor will pardon Burris, an Underground Railroad “conductor” who today is considered a hero for helping escaped slaves find their way to freedom ...

Burris’ courage is particularly notable because, unlike the white abolitionists with whom he worked, the father of five children and husband to Catherine could be sold into slavery for his actions. He eventually was ordered to be sold into servitude, or slavery, for two periods of seven years each.

“The man put his life on the line and the life of his family on the line to do work that was illegal at the time,” said Robin Krawitz, a Delaware State University historian writing a book about Burris. “We can look back and say that our system was wrong. He was not wrong, he was practicing civil disobedience.” ...

http://www.kvor.com/news/righting-a-wrong-delaware-to-pardon-man-who-guided-slaves-to-freedom/