WASHINGTON (7News) — On the night of April 15, 1848, 77 enslaved men, women, and children slipped onto a schooner called The Pearl at the foot of 7th Street in Southwest D.C. and sailed toward freedom.
They didn’t make it. But what they set in motion would help end slavery in the nation’s capital.
Wednesday marks the 178th anniversary of what historians call the largest attempted escape of enslaved people in American history, and the descendants of the families who organized it are still finding each other…