Morning Edition; Oney Judge

It's morning edition on 89.9 KRPS I'm Fred Fletcher-Fierro. February in the US is Black History Month, also known as African American History Month. It's a time when we remember and reflect back on the important people and events of the African dysphoria. Black History Month has its roots to 1926 here in the US when it was Black History Week. The week was chosen because it coincided with the birthday of Abraham Lincoln on February 12th and Fredric Douglas on February 14th, both of which dates Black communities had celebrated together since the late 19th century. Locally, Jomplin Public Library will be holding a Black History celebration on Saturday, February 22nd, starting at 10.30 in the morning until noon. At the event, not-amountly will portray owner Judge, who was an enslaved woman who escaped from and was relentlessly pursued by our first president, George Washington. I recently spoke with Nana and first asked her who owner Judge was and why she's important

to remember. I think owner Judge must be remembered because she was so courageous at that time and decided to obtain her own freedom from the first president of the United States from the first president's house. Now, this house was in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. had not been built at that time, and so she decided that she wanted to have her liberty and she took it. That's bull-moved. Very well. Very well. And that's why we know about her. That's what's so interesting. Had she not taken that step, we never would have probably even known her name. She would have been a tick mark on a piece of paper that told how many slaves they had. But because she decided to take her freedom, they put an ad in the newspaper, and that advertisement about her leaving, taking leave of the president's house is how we were able to trace her.

In 1941, I've lived a few places in the country, I've never heard of her. So I'm going to assume that it's common that most people haven't. Maybe if you're from Southwest Missouri, and maybe they've seen your portrayal, or maybe if you live in Philadelphia, why haven't we heard of her more? Well, and that's just in the late 1990s, Erica Armstrong Dunbar was doing some research on freelance in Philadelphia, and she happened upon this article. Now, up until this time, no one really had explored her life fully. And so when she did that, when she found that article, she then went back and started tracing some other things, tracing her life. And it came to light that in the 1840s, several abolitionist newspapers had come to her and did interviews with her.

So she was able to trace, and we have in her own, as own words, what her life was like living with the Washington's. So that's still pretty recent, the 1990s. Yes, her research was done in the 1990s. I'm sorry, but you were talking about that, I mean, that's still pretty recent to go back 150 years in a finance individual. Right, yes, yes. And she wrote a book and it's called Never Caught. And I really encourage everyone to read about that. There's only so much that you can do in a portrayal. And that book really lays out a lot about her life and her family's life and what happened even after that. So anyways. So let's talk about your portrayal. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So I started portraying on the judge a couple of years ago, I work in the McDonald County school district area. So I started portraying her just as a way of, once I read her story, I thought, man, why not just an amazing story.

So for Black History Month, I occasionally would have people ask me to come and do some type of a presentation. And then with that story, you couldn't just tell her story without becoming her. I had to become her. So I have a background in theater, I've worked a lot with juffle, little theater during Jocelyn, and then also with the Stone's Throw Theater in Carthage. So theater has been my life since I was in high school. And it really just came natural to portray this person, this courageous person that, you know, just making sure that her story was told. Natty Nunley, speaking about own a judge who she will be portraying at the Black History celebration at Joplin Public Library this Saturday, February 22, starting at 1030 in the morning. You could learn more about the event by searching Joplin Public Library Black History Month, or visiting our news blog at krpsnews.com.