Henry ‘Box’ Brown had a variety of identities in his life-tobacco factory worker, escaped slave, abolitionist, lecturer, and touring panoramist and entertainer on the English stage. In recent years, a variety of artists, performers, and writers have carried on his legacy via the performing arts. However, one aspect of his career is better documented and easier for public historians to trace. Remembered in the United States for his 1849 escape from slavery by having himself mailed from Richmond, Virginia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, his newest identity might be as a tourist attraction and symbol of enslaved resistance and black empowerment. Today there is a statue near Richmond’s James River waterfront in his memory alongside other historical waysides and markers, as well as historical tours and a smartphone application that include the statue and other sites associated with his 1849 escape along their routes.[i]
Brown’s transformation into a modern tourist attraction documents the important role and resilience of black resistance in Richmond’s shifting commemorative landscape.[2] In the 21st century, Richmond has distanced itself from a Lost Cause interpretation of its history to include other eras of its past as well as the voices of those long forgotten. Tourists and visitors in the Richmond, Virginia area can now experience Brown’s journey to freedom and hear his story for themselves, simultaneously placing Brown and his narrative of enslaved resistance within the realms of entertainment and public history education. Drawing on my own experience as a tour guide and public historian in Richmond, as well as using my original tour material and the guests’ responses to it along with a digital tour via the CLIO smartphone application, and the secondary works and guidebooks of other local history guides, I argue that the story of Henry ‘Box’ Brown and his escape continues to resonate with the public in the twenty-first century.
The legacy of ‘Box’ Brown and his struggle for freedom is inextricably linked to Richmond’s landscape. Along Richmond’s historic riverfront Canal Walk, near the former location of William Barret’s tobacco factory sits a monument that resembles Brown’s wooden crate. Built in 2001, the statue is accompanied by a nearby marker with interpretive text, telling the story of Brown’s escape including several passages from his 1849 slave narrative. It is the same dimensions that Brown gave in his memoir for the crate that carried him to freedom, ‘three feet tall by two feet wide and two and a half feet deep.’ Inside the metal statue is a life-sized outline of the six-foot-tall Brown sitting in a a fetal position during his journey. [3]
The life-sized, box-shaped monument dedicated to Henry “Box” Brown, located along the Canal Walk at ‘Box’ Brown Plaza, downtown Richmond, Virginia. Photo by author.
The inscription on the box reads “My friends… managed to break open the box , and then came my resurrection from the grave of slavery… I rose a free man.” Photos by author…