Uncle Tom: The True Story of Josiah Henson by Jeremiah Core at HFF

The Hollywood Fringe Festival presents

Uncle Tom: The True Story of Josiah Henson

Written and Performed by Jeremiah Core

Click here for tickets!

Most people know the name “Uncle Tom” as an insult. It is slanderous within the Black community. Yet, few know of the extraordinary man behind it.

Born into slavery in Maryland and separated from his family before the age of five, Josiah Henson endured profound hardship. Holding fast to unshakable hope, he escaped enslavement, learned to read and write, became a preacher and author, met the Queen of England, spoke at the White House, and risked his life helping others to escape slavery through the Underground Railroad.

Henson’s remarkable life inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, one of the most influential novels in American history and an inciting flame of the Civil War.

This powerful solo show reveals the true story of Josiah Henson—the man behind the legend—and explores how one of America’s most vilified names came to mean something very different from the real-life hero who inspired it.