A new book by historian James O’Neil Spady suggests that Black freedman Denmark Vesey was not the sole leader of the failed 1822 plot to kill White Charlestonians before a planned escape to Haiti.

Two enslaved men revealed the pending attack, which led to the execution of 35 enslaved people, including Vesey, a carpenter, free man of color and a leader in an outlawed Black church.

Spady, an associate professor at Soka University of America in California, said he was inspired to dig deeper into the Vesey uprising after reading a startling 2001 essay by John Hopkins University historian Michael P. Johnson. It suggested Vesey and enslaved people did not plan the uprising but White Charlestonians concocted it as a ruse to kill Black people.

Spady said his book, Take Freedom: Recovering the

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