Sole Survivor

If the raid at Harpers Ferry had been a movie, Osborne Perry Anderson might have won Best Supporting Actor. And yet his role went largely unrecognized -- until a Northern Virginian moved it into the... By Eugene L. MeyerSunday, December 12, 2004; Page W20 They met furtively, first inside a wood-frame church, then in a school, then at a firehouse and finally at a Baptist church in the Canadian town of Chatham, all over two days in May 1858. There were 46 altogether, all men, 12 white and 34 black. They had come north to escape a society where blacks were often no more than chattel. So when their charismatic leader proposed an audacious plan to establish an independent free state for blacks in the southern Appalachians, there were no dissenters. Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44758-2004Dec7.html