I've Got a Home in Glory Land tells the fascinating story of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, runaway slaves whose daring flight to freedom quite literally made history. Brought to light through a chance discovery by archaeologists working in a Toronto schoolyard, the Blackburn story has come to symbolize the courage, ingenuity, and, above all, the love of liberty shown by the more than 35,000 African Americans who left the United States for Canada before the Civil War.

Unique as a modern fugitive slave tale, I've Got a Home in Glory Land is a true-life adventure story. The book carries us through the daily rounds of urban slaves Thornton and Lucie Blackburn in the bustling warehouse district of downtown Louisville. On the day before Independence Day, 1831, they chose to risk all they held dear to break free of bondage. Dressed in a black silk gown, Lucie accompanied her much younger husband, Thornton, as they flagged down the steamboat Versailles. Their fine clothes and confident demeanour convinced Captain Quarrier that they were free people and he carried them to Cincinnati where they caught a stagecoach to Detroit, Michigan.

Back in Louisville, the Blackburns’ owners sued the proprietors of the Versailles. The case continued over fifteen years, and went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States.

For the Blackburns, the safety of Michigan Territory proved illusory: Thornton and Lucie were living happily as part of Detroit’s small African-American community when they were discovered, arrested, tried, and convicted as fugitive slaves. Sentenced to be returned to a lifetime of slavery, a crowd of more than two hundred men and women rescued them and spirited them off to Canada. The violence of their escape is memorialized ever afterwards as the “Blackburn Riots of 1833,” the first race riots in the City of Detroit.

The Blackburns’ arrival in Canada was heralded by demands for their extradition, but Canada’s lieutenant-governor held firm. He freed the Blackburns in a landmark case that set the precedent for all fugitive slave disputes between the U.S. and Canada until the time of the Civil War. Thornton and Lucie settled in Toronto. Five years later, Thornton risked everything again and secretly followed the Underground Railroad routes back to Kentucky to rescue his elderly mother.

Thornton and Lucie Blackburn became staunch friends of the fugitive slave community in Ontario and lifelong opponents of racial oppression. They made tireless efforts to help hundreds of other fugitives upon their arrival in antebellum Ontario.

By the time the Blackburns died just before the turn of the century, they had become a well-to-do and respected couple. Yet within a few short years their story was forgotten; they had no children and neither Thornton nor Lucie ever learned to read or write. But in 1985, an archaeological excavation brought to light the clues to their remarkable story, and led to the Blackburns’ commemoration by both the State of Kentucky and the Government of Canada, which designated them “Persons of National Historic Significance”.