Logline
When authorities arrested fugitive slave Joshua Glover in 1854, some 5,000 of his Wisconsin neighbors rallied to his cause, breaking down the jail door and escorting him to freedom. Their efforts set in motion a series of events with historic consequences, ultimately leading to emancipation.

Synopsis
Joshua Glover was a black man living in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1854. He worked at a sawmill, sold carved items in the community and had his own home. Life was simple but good – until a white man appeared at a Milwaukee courthouse claiming that Glover was a criminal.

A posse was formed and made its way to Racine, 30 miles to the south. On a dark evening in March, they entered Glover’s home, beat him and placed him in manacles before tossing him into a wagon. Glover, bleeding and freezing, was carted off to a Milwaukee jail.

Racine residents heard about the arrest and notified a Milwaukee newspaper editor named Sherman Booth. He, in turn, spread the word throughout the Milwaukee area. Soon an angry mob of thousands surrounded the courthouse and demanded authorities release Glover to them.

Eventually they took matters into their own hands, battered down the jailhouse door, overwhelmed the guards and dragged the captive into the street.

Viewers who aren’t familiar with the story probably won’t expect what happens next. The crowd whisks Glover away in a waiting carriage and hides him from federal authorities. Over the next few weeks, they conceal him in homes and barns along the Underground Railroad and eventually smuggle him to Canada to prevent his Missouri slaveowner from reclaiming his “property.” The motives of these liberty-conscious Wisconsinites were merciful, not malevolent.

The Glover incident was the final straw that compelled a group of antislavery Wisconsinites to meet in Ripon, Wisconsin, just days later to form a new political entity: the Republican Party. Motivated by opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, disparate factions of Northern Democrats, Whigs and Free-Soil members would unite under the banner of liberty and opportunity. Their unifying objective was to limit slavery’s expansion and fulfill America’s declaration that all men are endowed with an unalienable right to liberty.

The formation of this new party, its successes at the state and national level, and the six-year court battles that embroiled some of Glover’s rescuers would further exacerbate already strained relations between North and South. Liberty at Stake will recount these and related events that culminated in the election of Lincoln, Southern secession, Civil War and, ultimately, emancipation.

The film will also follow the life of Glover from his sale to Garland in St. Louis in 1850 to his daring escape two years later, his new life in Racine and the chaotic, inspiring events of March 1854. Viewers will follow his post-rescue life, once he is safely ensconced in a community outside Toronto, Canada. Over the next 40 years, Glover worked, earned wages, married and lived a normal life free from the tyranny and fear he had left behind.

Director’s Statement
When I first heard about the events surrounding Joshua Glover, I knew it was a story that needed telling. As a history lover and lifelong storyteller, I was struck by a real-life narrative that had it all: drama, conflict, heroics, villainy, fear, sacrifice … and an unexpected twist. The protagonist was a true underdog, the antagonist a heartless scoundrel. It was an old-fashioned tale of good vs. evil, David vs. Goliath.

I was moved by the plight of Glover, a fugitive slave from Missouri who thought he had found sanctuary in Racine before the slavecatchers caught up with him. His arrest and rescue by 5,000 determined Wisconsinites is a remarkable and little-known story.

But I later discovered there was more to the tale. The events surrounding Glover were a catalyst for even more dramatic and historic events. It wasn’t until early 2023, when I was at an estate sale rummaging through thousands of books once owned by a retired history professor, that I came across The Rescue of Joshua Glover: A Fugitive Slave, the Constitution and the Coming of the Civil War by H. Robert Baker. I continued to scrounge, finding at least two dozen books on Wisconsin history, slavery in America, the abolition movement and related topics. I bought them all.

As I began to read through this new collection, I discovered that just days after Glover’s rescue, an ardent group of Wisconsinites – incensed by the Fugitive Slave Act that made his return to slavery possible – met in the tiny village of Ripon, Wis., to form a new political party. Disillusioned by the failure of the Democrat, Whig, Liberty and Free Soil parties to effectively counter the “slave powers,” these abolitionists called themselves “Republicans.” A few months later they would hold a convention in the state capital of Madison and dedicate the new Republican Party to “the defense of freedom.”

This development, coupled with later Wisconsin Supreme Court rulings in favor of those who helped rescue Glover, widened the North-South chasm, sparking Southern talk of secession. When Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 general election, the slave states followed through on that threat. The attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861 launched a destructive, four-year war between the states. During his first term, Lincoln would sign the Emancipation Proclamation and a measure revoking the Fugitive Slave Act.

Liberty at Stake: The Joshua Glover Story will tell the tale of this brave man, the passionate Wisconsinites who helped secure his freedom and the nation that struggled with the aftermath.

Support the Film 'Liberty at Stake'

The Joshua Glover Story

Team Members