Beginning the day after Virginia seceded, at the beginning of the Civil War, enslaved people in Hampton Roads began liberating themselves by becoming “Contrabands”, escaping to Ft. Monroe and later at other Union forts and camps -- momentous first steps leading to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Aspects of this story are enacted by two members of the Contraband Historical Society, TONY GABRIELE as General Benjamin Butler and PHIL ADDERLEY as the Reverend William Roscoe Davis. Phil and Tony will then discuss the many ways the Society preserves this neglected history and brings it to the public.