The Washington Crossing Historic Park Book Club invites history enthusiasts to explore the American Revolution through engaging discussion and carefully selected readings. Led by the park’s Museum Curator, Kimberly McCarty, the club meets virtually via Zoom and focuses on books that shed new light on the Revolutionary era, with special emphasis on the events surrounding the Delaware River crossing and the 1776 campaign. Free and open to all, meetings typically take place on the third Monday of each month and provide an opportunity to connect with fellow readers while deepening your understanding of this pivotal period in American history.

Running from Bondage tells the compelling stories of enslaved women, who comprised one-third of all runaways, and the ways in which they fled or attempted to flee bondage during and after the Revolutionary War. Karen Cook Bell’s enlightening and original contribution to the study of slave resistance in eighteenth-century America explores the individual and collective lives of these women and girls of diverse circumstances, while also providing details about what led them to escape. She demonstrates that there were in fact two wars being waged during the Revolutionary Era: a political revolution for independence from Great Britain and a social revolution for emancipation and equality in which Black women played an active role. Running from Bondage broadens and complicates how we study and teach this momentous event, one that emphasizes the chances taken by these ‘Black founding mothers’ and the important contributions they made to the cause of liberty.

Running from Bondage:  Enslaved Women and their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America by Karen Cook Bell

• June 15 – Introduction – Chapter 2
• July 20- Chapters 3-4
• August 20 – Chapter 5- Appendix