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Book Signing: One Minute a Free Woman (location--Stephentown, NY, Historical Society)
Elizabeth Freeman and the Struggle for Freedom

Date

Monday, September 13, 2010

Time

7:00 PM

Location

Stephentown, NY, Historical Society

Description

Take a journey of heart and mind across time, place, families, and communities. Our journey focuses on the life
of Elizabeth “Mumbet” Freeman, perhaps the best-known and most influential woman from the Berkshires. In
1781, seeing a contradiction between her enslavement and the quest for freedom being waged by the patriots in town
against British rule, she sought her own freedom from Colonel John Ashley in Sheffield, Massachusetts. She won her
lawsuit and helped end slavery in Massachusetts.

Although Black, a woman (pre–women’s rights), unable to read or write, a slave, and, for much of her life,
a servant, Freeman resisted being a victim. Instead she lived a full and rewarding life. She owned a small farm,
supported her family, and cared for her friends and neighbors as a skilled nurse and midwife.

Freeman’s rich and complex life is the starting point for an exploration into the lives of other Black families and
other Black communities as they formed and changed over time in towns such as Sheffield, Stockbridge, and Lenox,
Massachusetts, and Norfolk, Connecticut.

September 13, 7:00 p.m.
Stephentown Historical Society
Stephentown Heritage Center
Junction of Staples and Garfield Roads
Stephentown, NY
(518) 733-5675