Scranton Reads: One City, One Book announced that “Never Caught: The Washington’s Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge” by Erica Armstrong Dunbar Ph.D. will be their next book selection for the annual city-wide reading program.
In year’s past, Scranton Reads has taken place in October but due the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic the reading program will be moved to February 2021 to coincide with Black History Month.
Dr. Dunbar’s book deals with President George Washington and his wife, Martha, pursuit of Ona Judge, one of Martha’s slaves, who ran away once the Washington’s moved from Mount Vernon, Virginia to Philadelphia. The book was published in 2017 and was a finalist for the National Book Award. In 2018 the book was awarded the Frederick Douglass Book Award by Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.
Dr. Dunbar is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. She currently is the Charles & Mary Beard Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University.
Additional information about Scranton Reads can be found online at scrantonreads.org, the Scranton Public Library website, https://lclshome.org/b/albright-memorial-library/ or by calling the library at 570-348-3000.
Brian Fulton has been the librarian at The Times-Tribune for the past 15 years. On his blog, Historically Hip, he writes about the great concerts, plays/musicals and celebrity happenings that have taken place throughout NEPA. He is also the co-host of the local history podcast, Historically Hip. He competed and was crowned grand champion on an episode of NPR quiz show “Ask Me Another.” Contact: bfulton@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9140; or @TTPagesPast
