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Explicit content is found in this episode, so listener discretion is advised.

Welcome back to True Crime Cases. I'm your host, Laney.

Crime doesn't change, but the law sure does. What do I mean by that? Just think about recent history, say the last 100 years.

Think about how many people have fought for their rights and won during that time alone, even just a little bit, even if the war still rages on around them.

Civil rights, rights for the queer community, the rights of indigenous peoples, the rights for women and children.

In the not-so-distant past, women were denied the right to vote, children toiled in factories crawling through machinery for grueling 12-hour shifts.

And as we grapple with the ethics of justice, the legality of taking a life or taking another's depends on where you stand, the state, the country, or the union that frames the boundaries of justice.

And at the heart of it all, the key that transforms any act into a crime lies in its defiance of the law.

In today's episode, I'm diverging from my regular episodes. You may not know this about me, but I received my bachelor's in history and I am a huge history buff.

I completely get it if that's not your thing, but I appreciate you being along for the ride.

In this episode, I'll unveil a captivating tale spanning nearly a century across the US, where what were once considered crimes are now celebrated as acts of heroism.

But if you thought sharing these cases was a simple task, well, brace yourself. It's a riveting exploration of ethics, shifting perceptions, and the world that is crime. Okay, onto the show.

The history of the United States of America has slavery entangled deeply, inextricably within its roots.

Past on from its predecessors and the British colonies, millions of black people were abducted into slavery from the 1500s and onwards.

Millions of those people died in transit alone, millions more from the brutal force labor and the mistreatment they faced from their white owners.

Because according to the laws of the land at the time, they weren't people, they were property.

There were only two options they had if they ever wanted freedom, one legal and one illegal. They could purchase themselves or they could run, leaving behind everything they knew for the slim hope of reaching somewhere they would be treated as human beings.

As one of the figures will discuss today said, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other.

Runaway or refugee slaves were a matter of law in the New England Confederation around 1643, with further legislation being enacted across many of the 13 colonies as the years progressed.

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