This browser does not support the Video element.
Northstar Journey of 1862: Family escapes slavery for a new life in Hastings
Reporter Babs Santos tells us the story of one Minnesota family's challenging journey to freedom.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A full house turned up at St Peter’s African Methodist Episcopal Church in Minneapolis on Saturday to learn about Greg McMoore’s family history. He shared with them the important story of his ancestors’ "North Star Journey" from enslavement on a Virginia plantation to freedom in Hastings, Minnesota.
"We need to talk to each other, we need to share our story," McMoore said afterward. "How can you figure out where you’re going to go if you don’t know where you came from?"
RELATED: Black History Month: Focusing on pioneers in Minnesota
Four generations later, his family is now well-established in south Minneapolis. But their namesake didn’t truly get a chance at life until 1862 when James Wallace freed himself.
As McMoore tells it, his great-great-grandfather Wallace was working in the fields of Virginia when he became thirsty and asked for water. After being denied water, he struck and killed his overseer before escaping to the woods.
There, with men and dogs on his trail, Wallace fled from Virginia, eventually building a log cabin in Hastings. Later, he paid $100 to a white man to have his wife hidden on a hay wagon and brought her north.
"The old folks, the elders, need to pass this along to the young people to keep history alive," McMoore said of the story on Saturday.
His family was not the first group of Africans to find a new life in Minnesota, but he says they worked hard to do the right thing once here by starting their church.
Years later, that church was burned down in an unsolved 1907 arson, not long after Wallace died at about 70 years old.
"I get emotional talking about my folks," McMoore said. "The tenacity, the resilience, what it took to get off the plantation and come to Minnesota."
And many in attendance on Saturday were captivated by the story as well.
"It’s very comparable to some of the experiences my family must’ve had as well," Harriet Bowman Solomon said. "When my mom would talk about it, it would make her so sad, and she would cry."
More of Greg McMoore’s family history is currently on display at the Hennepin History Museum.