Black History Month has passed, but it's never too late to recognize an interesting character in African-American history.

When Henry "Box" Brown fled Virginia slavery in March 1849, he and his accomplices devised a escape plan that would later make them nationally famous. Once you learn this story, you'll understand why Brown was cocky enough to change his middle name to "Box".

Brown, who weighed over 200 pounds, had himself sealed in a box that was roughly 3 feel long, 2 1/2 feet deep, and 2 feet wide. The box was to look like it was transporting dry goods, and was shipped to Philadelphia next-day express. Receiving the package in Philadelphia – thankfully, he was home when it arrived – was James McKim, a white minister who believed in slavery abolition.


The plan went off without a hitch, with Brown arriving safely as a free man in Philadelphia. Trouble came when the two men couldn't keep the juicy story to themselves.

Brown published his memoirs later that same year, Narrative of the life of Henry Box Brown, where he detailed every aspect of his plan, from stop to finish. He also took his act on the road, speaking on behalf of the Anti-Slavery League. You can't really blame the guy from boasting, when you hear of his ordeal.

I laid me down in my darkened home of three feet by two, and like one about to be guillotined, resigned myself to his fate. My friend was to accompany me, but he failed to do so; and contented himself with sending a telegraph message to his corespondent in Philadelphia, that such a box was on its way to his care.  —Henry "Box" Brown

Even though his friends in Virginia scribbled "THIS SIDE UP" on the box, Brown spent much of his 27-hour, 350-mile trip on his head. To avoid detection in the steamboat car – remember, he can't see – he had to avoid moving for its entirety.

If you read his narratives, you'll realize just how happy Brown was to taste American freedom, which made the next few years even more tragic. Congress would pass the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, forcing runaway slaves in the North to return to their masters in the South. His notoriety put Brown at risk for apprehension, so he fled to England.

Back at home, he was hailed by some for his bold escape. Others criticized Brown and McKim for spreading the story, and thus preventing other slaves from replicating the plan. Brown's list of detractors included Frederick Douglass:

Had not Henry Box Brown and his friends attracted slaveholding attention to the manner of his escape, we might have had a thousand 'Box Browns' per annum. The singularly original plan adopted by William and Ellen Crafts, perished with the first using, because every slaveholder in the land was apprised of it. The 'Salt Water Slave' who hung in the guards of a steamer, being washed three days and three nights — like another Jonah — by the waves of the sea, has, by the publicity given to the circumstance, set a spy on the guards of every steamer departing from the southern ports.  —Frederick Douglass

Historians believe Brown stayed in England until after the Civil War, but this time returned as a free man.

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