The exhibit features a timeline of events that led to the Blackburns life in Toronto after escaping Louisville.(Giselle Rhoden / LPM )In the Frazier History Museum’s recent exhibit, maps of 19th century Louisville, Detroit and Toronto hang on the walls amid a timeline riddled with trailblazing sto ries. A table encased in glass stands next to it, and inside, several fragments of buttons, kitchen china, a tobacco pipe and a pharmacy bottle.What may look like scraps in a box tells the heroic tale of an enslaved couple’s escape that began in Louisville in 1831.“Louisville to Liberty: The Blackburns’ Journey” features artifacts belonging to Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, an enslaved couple in Louisville who made a daring escape north to Canada. Frazier’s vice president of mission, Rachel Platt, said the Blackburns’ story is “something out of movie,” and their legacy lives on in parts of Louisville and beyond.This is the first time the items are on display in the United States. The Frazier Museum collaborated with the (Un)Known Project, Roots 101 African American Museum and received funding from the Kentucky African American Heritage Commission to support the exhibit.Forged papers, a race riot and Canadian extraditionThornton and Lucie were enslaved on separate plantations in Louisville and got married. At the time, Thornton worked on a shipping port for a dry goods store, and Lucie—who was given the name Ruthie when she was enslaved—was a housemaid.As Platt explained, on July 3, 1831 the Blackburns started their plan to escape, after they learned the plantation owner where Lucie stayed was planning to sell her further down South.“It was before [Independence Day], so they knew that there would be other distractions and celebrations when they did it,” Platt said. “A lot of people knew who [Thornton] was by the work he did, but he planned that as well. [Port workers] won't be there that day. That's a holiday.”Thornton and Lucie left with forged freedom papers and headed across the Ohio River on a ferry. The couple traveled all the way to Detroit before they were arrested. In 1833, anecdotal accounts at the time said an integrated crowd gathered at the jailhouse and ultimately broke the couple out of the jail, sparking Detroit’s first recorded race riot.“Then they ended up getting [the Blackburns’] to these boats that got them into Canada, and then later arrested because Canada had a very important decision to make: Do we send them back? Do we extradite them back to the United States?” Platt said.Canada chose to allow the Blackburns to seek refuge there, which set the precedent for future freedom-seekers and the country’s current extradition laws.The Blackburns spent the rest of their lives in Toronto and became abolitionists who helped others escape enslavement in the United States. Thornton also founded Toronto’s first taxi cab company, and today, the city uses red and yellow colors on its cabs, the same colors painted on Thornton’s horse and buggy taxi service.“I don't know that anybody who gets into a taxi cab and knows the red and yellow knows the origins of that from a man named Thornton Blackburn, who you know came from Kentucky,” Platt said.A history long untoldThere are no photos of the Blackburns’, and their story wasn’t publicized until 1985.Canadian archaeologist Karolyn Smardz Frost was running a kids archeology program in Toronto, and she said she came across the Blackburns while searching the city’s street directory for the program’s next dig.“It said, ‘Thornton Blackburn, cabman, colored’ as the owner of the property where the Sackville School was standing.”Smardz Frost said she discovered that the Blackburns’ home once stood in the schoolyard. What’s now called Inglenook Community School is the Toronto District School Board’s oldest school.In 1985, Smardz Frost led a district-wide effort to dig in that schoolyard with 3,000 students, and their work uncovered the artifacts currently on display at the Fraizer.“I went on to spend 20 years researching the lives of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn,” Smardz Frost said. “I had no idea how difficult this was going to be.”In 2007, Smardz Frost published “I’ve Got a Home in the Glory Land,” a book that details moments of the Blackburns’ journey. Smardz Frost said she combed through decades of public archives, including diary entries, letters, newspaper articles and more.“I was totally intrigued by the life story of these two unbelievably brave people, who had effectively been forgotten by history,” she said, “The story was effectively lost, and I wanted to prove that people's stories did not have to be lost, that we could recover some of these lost tales, and we could tell them in in extreme detail.”The Frazier exhibit will remain open until July 4, 2027. ...read more read less