Never Caught: A Conversation on History, Freedom, and Memory

Join acclaimed historian and author Erica Armstrong Dunbar for a thought-provoking conversation about her award-winning book, "Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge." In dialogue with Duke historian Tamika Nunley, Dunbar will explore the remarkable story of Ona Judge, the complexities of slavery in the nation's founding, and the enduring questions of freedom, resistance, and historical memory. Together, they will examine how recovering overlooked stories deepens our understanding of the American past and its continuing impact today.

Erica Armstrong Dunbar is a historian, professor of African American Studies at Emory University, and main historical consultant and co-executive producer for HBO's "The Gilded Age", whose work shines a light on racial injustice, slavery, and gender inequality. Her first book, "A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City", was published by Yale University Press in 2008. Her second book, "Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge" was a 2017 finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and a winner of the 2018 Frederick Douglass Book Award. She is also the author of She Came to Slay, an illustrated tribute to Harriet Tubman, and Susie King Taylor.

Tamika Nunley is the William and Sue Gross Professor of History at Duke University. Along with articles, essays, and reviews, she is the author of "At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C." which received the Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Award, the Pauli Murray Book Prize, the Mary Kelley Book Prize and the Francis B. Simkins Award. Her article "Thrice Condemned': Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Practice of Leniency in Antebellum Courts," received the Letitia Woods Brown prize for best article in African American Women's History and the Anne Braden Prize for best article in Southern Women's History. Nunley released her second book, "The Demands of Justice: Enslaved Women, Capital Crime and Clemency in Early Virginia" with the University of North Carolina Press. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, NewsOne, Smithsonian Magazine, Ms. Magazine, and Fortune Magazine. In 2023, the Librarian of Congress named her the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American history. She recently co-curated an exhibit "Social Fabric: Land, Labor, and the Worlds the Textile Industry Created".