Ruppersburg is a professor of english and associate dean of arts and sciences at the University of Georgia.
Ellen Craft (1826-1891) and William Craft (September 25, 1824 - January 29, 1900) were slaves from Macon, Georgia in the United States who escaped to the North in December 1848 by traveling openly by train and steamboat, arriving in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. She posed as a white male planter and he as her personal servant. Their daring escape was widely publicized, making them among the most famous of fugitive slaves. Abolitionists featured them in public lectures to gain support in the struggle to end the institution. As the light-skinned mixed-race daughter of a mulatto slave and her white master, Ellen Craft used her appearance to pass as a white man, dressed in appropriate… clothing. Threatened by slave catchers in Boston after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the Crafts escaped to England, where they lived for nearly two decades and reared five children. The Crafts lectured publicly about their escape. In 1860 they published a written account, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; Or, The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery. One of the most compelling of the many slave narratives published before the American Civil War, their book reached wide audiences in Great Britain and the United States. After their return to the US in 1868, the Crafts opened an agricultural school for freedmen's children in Georgia and worked the farm until 1890. Their account was reprinted in the United States in 1999, with both the Crafts credited as authors.
Joel Chandler Harris was born in Eatonton, Ga., on December 9, 1848. Deserted by his father at an early age, Harris dropped out of school and began working as a literary apprentice to help his mother make ends meet. Soon after, he was writing humorous pieces for several Georgia newspapers and in 1876, Harris joined the Staff of the Atlanta Constitution as an editor. Harris is best remembered for writing the Uncle Remus stories. Based on traditional African tales and folklore, the stories feature animal characters, such as Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, who are endowed with human characteristics. Some of the Uncle Remus titles include Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings, Night with Uncle Remus,… Uncle Remus and His Friends, and Uncle Remus and the Little Boy. After his death on July 3, 1908, Harris's home in Atlanta's West End was preserved as a museum called Wren's Nest. The museum got its name from a family of wrens that were found nesting in Harris's rickety old wooden mailbox.