Jan Wade created this poster project as part of the Hamilton Art Crawl for the artist-run centre Hamilton Artists Inc. to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the founding of her childhood church, St. Paul’s African Methodist Episcopal Church (now Stewart Memorial Church). Founded in 1835, it was a social and religious centre for formerly enslaved Americans who had escaped to Canada through the Underground Railroad. St. Paul’s/Stewart Memorial represents the longest surviving predominantly Black congregation in Hamilton. At the time of the anniversary in 2010, Barack Obama was president of the United States. Borrowing imagery from a historical runaway slave poster, Wade’s work reminds us that in spite of Obama’s achievement as the first African American president, the repercussions of slavery and system racism are ongoing and we must all continue to strive for freedom, justice, and equality.