Judge Stephen J. Sfekas begins with the ordeal of Solomon Northup, a free Black man from upstate New York who was lured to Washington, D.C., kidnapped, and sold into slavery in Louisiana. Using Northup’s own first person account, the episode follows how he survived twelve years in captivity, stayed silent about his identity to avoid deadly punishment, and finally got word to allies in New York. The legal fight that follows shows a freedom case that succeeds without ever becoming a full trial, because the lawsuit pressures the enslaver into surrendering Northup rather than paying the cost of litigation.

The episode then shifts to the late pre Civil War period, when the country polarized and Southern states hardened laws around slavery and manumission. Judge Sfekas walks through Louisiana’s manumission battles in the 1850s, including the jury ...