Slavery never disappears; it just evolves and continues to influence its subjects in different ways. One manifestation was the “Lost Cause” view of slavery and the Civil War.

Wells is best known for her fearless anti‑lynching crusade in the late 19th century, which exposed lynching as a tool of racial terror rather than criminal punishment.

The Great Dismal Swamp covers southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Maroons began settling there in the late 1600s and continued living there well into the mid-19th century.

After William Byrd II and George Washington first planned the Dismal Swamp Canal, Virginia approved construction in 1787, and North Carolina in 1790. A North Carolina/Virginia private company, the Dismal Swamp Canal Company, began construction in 1793.