Before Ellis Island, it was at Fort Monroe where Jefferson's declaration of "Freedom for All" was first realized. In May 1861 at the start of the Civil War, 3 enslaved men Frank Baker, James Townsend & Shepherd Mallory risked life & limb by escaping to Freedom Fortress Monroe where they petitioned Lincoln's general Benjamin Butler for freedom. But in 1861 the enslaved were counted as more property than human and thus not legally eligible for citizenship. Butler, a lawyer, authored a "Contrabands of War"  policy which put 1,000s of men, women and children on the road to citizenship 2 years before the Emancipation Proclamation & long before passage of the 13th,14th & 15th amendments by 1870. For more information please Google "Sheri Bailey, playwright" or visit www.collectiveartstheatre.com or www.youtube.com/deaconman and start making plans to visit Fort Monroe in 2019 to celebrate 400 years of this at times painful but always redemptive American history.