Guest Spotlight: William Parker's War on Slave Catchers

Radio Diaries

Radio Diaries & Radiotopia

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2026

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week we're bringing you a story from our friends at History This Week, a podcast from the History Channel.

April 3, 1951. A man who escaped slavery is grabbed off the streets of Boston and thrown into a carriage. He fights back, shouting to the crowd, but it doesn’t matter. Under a new federal law, even the North isn’t safe.

The Fugitive Slave Act has turned cities like Boston into hunting grounds. Freedom seekers are being captured, and ordinary citizens are being forced to help.

But across the North, resistance is growing. In Pennsylvania, a man named William Parker is building a network to fight back. When slave catchers come to his door, that resistance explodes into violence.

How did one law push the country dramatically closer to war? And what happens when the people targeted by this law refuse to surrender?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Joe, and I want to tell you about Radiotopia's newest show, Amityvilleville.
0:05.3	Alex Goldman, host of our fellow Radiotopia show Hyperfixed and former host of Reply All,
0:10.9	teams up with his friend Caroline Thompson to review all 91 movies in the Amityville franchise.
0:17.4	Inspired by the true story of the Defeo family murders in 1974, the Amityville horror became the second highest-grossing movie when it came out in 1979.
0:27.1	It inspired books, documentaries, and a sprawling and bizarre film franchise with titles like Amityville Elevator, Amadneville Outhouse, Amityville Job Interview, even Amityville in Space.
0:39.0	Yes, these are real movies.
0:40.8	The show will feature recaps of all 91 Amityville movies in the order they were released,
0:45.7	as well as interviews with people involved in the making of the films.
0:48.9	If you like horror, true crime, pop culture, and the way all these intersect, this show is for you.
0:55.4	You can find Amityvilleville at Radiotopia.fm or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:02.6	Radiotopia.
1:05.0	From PRX.
1:06.7	From PRX's Radiotopia, this is Radio Diaries.
1:09.5	I'm Joe Richmond.
1:39.5	Today we're bringing you a story from our friends at History This Week, a podcast from the History Channel. A decade before the Civil War, the United States already felt divided, and the North wasn't as safe as it seemed. Enslaved people used to be able to escape into free states to secure their freedom, but in 1851, a new federal law meant that even there, people who had escaped slavery could be captured and sent back, kidnapped by gangs of slave catchers, backed by the U.S. government.
1:44.4	But the story you'll hear today isn't just told through laws or headlines. It's told by someone who lived it.
1:46.6	A man named William Parker, who escaped slavery and built a life in Pennsylvania,
1:51.2	later wrote about what it meant to be hunted and what it took to resist.
1:55.7	His words take us inside a moment when that resistance was tested and everything changed.
2:02.2	Today, the story of William Parker's War on slave catchers.
2:07.1	Just a note before we start, this episode contains depictions of racist language and violence
2:11.7	from the era of American slavery.
	...

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