One couple’s remarkable escape from slavery

In 1848 Ellen Craft, an enslaved girl in Macon, Georgia, feared that her father – who was her White enslaver – would declare any youngster she bore as his property. And so, she and her husband, additionally enslaved, launched into a exceptional ruse: Fleeing the South, she masqueraded as a male White slaveowner accompanied by “his” slave. Correspondent Mark Whitaker talks with Ilyon Woo, creator of “Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom,” and with Peggy Preacely, the couple’s great-great-granddaughter.