The 1858 the arrest of Archy Lee as a fugitive slave initiated a dramatic sequence of legal decisions and public reactions. When the final case was heard in a packed San Francisco courtroom, streets pulsed with California’s greatest rallying of blacks and white allies around a fugitive-slave case. Archy Lee’s compelling journey from arrest to acquittal fuses major themes in American history and demonstrates African-Americans’ early struggles to participate fully in a just society.
