Welcome to Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.

Bell had known him for decades.

When they were children growing up in the Dutch community along the Hudson River, the two

had played together, the Dutch boy and the black girl enslaved by his neighbors.

Isaac's father had owned slaves as well, but as he grew up, he and his brother rejected

its brutality.

Bell had lived through that brutality though, and the scars on her back would be a reminder

of its evil for the rest of her life.

Maybe somewhere along the way, Bell had heard that Isaac condemned the evil that his

neighbors considered normal.

Maybe it was just their mutual friends who told Bell that Isaac would lend her a hand.

Whatever the case, on July 27, Bell knocked on Isaac's door.

When he welcomed her inside, Bell stepped in holding her infant daughter, and then

quickly explained what had happened.

By that time though, the man she had escaped was hard on her heels.

Soon enough, a second fist was pounding on Isaac's door, his voice demanding that Bell

come back to his home, to his land, to slavery.

Never one to shrink from danger or oppression, Bell answered back.

Yes, she was here, but no, she would never go back to her old life.

Furious, the pair continued to spar until Isaac stepped in and paid the man off.

He marched back out to the road, fuming with anger and frustration, his money clenched

in a tight fist.

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