William and Ellen Craft: A Love Story.

After suffering the agony of being sold away from their families as children, young "married" couple Ellen and William Craft could not endure the thought that they could easily be sold away from one another - so they hatched an ingenious plan. They would dress Ellen, 3/4 white - the daughter and great-granddaughter of slave masters - as a white man, they would dress William as her slave and the two would escape in plain sight. They found the means to buy train tickets North. The had to board multiple trains, stay at hotels, and dine with fellow travelers along the way.  In order to limit conversation and disguise that Ellen could not read or write, they passed Ellen's alter-ego off as sickly and placed "his" arm in a sling. The plan, long and harrowing as it was, worked like a charm, and Ellen and William escaped to freedom landing in Philidelphia on Christmas Day 1849. Once free, they developed a little bit of celebrity in the Abolitionist Movement. When slave catchers threatened to capture and return them to bondage, they escaped once again to England. 

"For I had much rather starve in England, a free woman, than be a slave for the best man that ever breathed upon the American continent." - Ellen Craft