; Whereas the song Sweet Chariot was said to be a personal favorite of Harriet Tubman’s as it indicated to slaves that they would be escaping soon; Whereas the song Follow the Drinking Gourd was used to remind slaves of the clues they would need to find their way north; Whereas those slaves who resisted their enslavement by running away were not only recaptured, punished, and returned to their torment, but also exposed in newspaper ads, which assured enslavers that all was well; Whereas the following is a selection of ads on captured suspected fugitive slaves run in the Montgomery Advertiser from 1849 to 1865; Whereas John, 23, ran away from Levi Williams, and had a $25 reward offered for John’s return; Whereas George, 20, was captured in Mobile County after he had escaped from owner James Edward Wilson in Memphis, Tennessee; Whereas Hannah, arrested in Pickens County, was a 75-year-old woman who was said to belong to John Smith of Lowndes County, Mississippi; Whereas Frank, whose age was described only as a boy, was an at-large runaway with a $15 reward for his capture; Whereas Lucinda, 20, was jailed in Mobile County, Alabama, belonged to Mrs. Elizabeth Hinsley of Sumter County, Alabama, and had multiple scars on her right arm; Whereas Black resistance to slavery was confronted with harsh court decisions that stripped Blacks of their human rights; Whereas in the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, the Supreme Court ruled that having lived in a free State and territory did not entitle an enslaved person, Dred Scott, to his freedom; Whereas the Court further ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that people of African descent are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word citizens in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States