Written by Davianna Larocque, a UConn Student, with support from the DAC team
For this week’s writing prompt, I decided to create a photo collage based on Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by Ellen and William Craft. In the collage, I have included two maps which I created on Google Maps showing the Crafts’ travels from Macon, Georgia to Boston, Massachusetts, as well as the journey from Boston, Massachusetts to the United
Kingdom. The maps help to visualize the long, arduous, and dangerous journey that the Crafts embarked on in order to achieve freedom. I have also included images of the methods of transportation that the crafts used for the longer parts of their journey. The passenger train and
passenger ship shown are photos of Civil War-era ships and trains. The sheer size of the locomotives show how truly vulnerable the Crafts must have been to prying passengers. I have also included a photo of Civil War-era green glasses, as well as the poultice used as a disguise for Ellen. The glasses and poultice are representative of the “inflammatory rheumatism” Ellen feigned in order to maintain disguise, privacy, and safety through covering her eyes and face, as well as providing an excuse for not signing her name, which she did not know how to write. The central photo is of a southern plantation from the Civil War era. I chose to place this photo in the direct center of the collage because it represents the starting point of the Crafts’ journey, and the sheer desperation and necessity for escape.
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