This episode of Radio Active Magazine features two topics: An interview with author Andrew Sillen about his new Black History book, Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White. And we interview Rev. Michael Stephens and attorney Suzanne Gladney who are inviting you to a Zoom event February 25, 7-   Kidnapped at Sea Andrew Sillen is author of (2024) Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White (Johns Hopkins U. Pr.). White was an illiterate free Black born in 1845 and serving as a cook  on a Yankee packet (cargo) ship,1 which was captured on the high seas 1862-10-09 by the faster CSS Alabama. White was enslaved and forced to serve on the Alabama, and lost his life when the Alabama was sunk not quite two years later, 1864-06-19, in the Battle of Cherbourg, just off the coast of France. Although relatively unknown today, the Battle of Cherbourg was one of the most famous naval battles of the American Civil War. For "the generation that survived the Civil War, this battle was as recognized as Gettysburg; the ships involved were as noted as the Monitor and Merrimack; and the captains, Raphael Semmes of the Alabama and John Ancrum Winslow of the Kearsarge, were as renowned as Admiral David Farragut.2 Sillen is a Visiting Research Associate in Anthropology at Rutgers. He noted that it was difficult to produce a serious biography of an illiterate Black teenager, who was born in 1845 and served in low-level jobs like  a ship's steward until he died in 1864, because authors had to rely on comments written about White by others. The power of this biography lies in its portrayal of the life of just such a relatively common person, typical of that period.   Threats to Refugees & Immigrants Rev. Michael Stephens and immigration attorney Suzanne Gladney invite you to a Zoom meeting February 25, 7- Stephens is the pastor at Southwood United Church of Christ in Raytown and is a leader with the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council. Gladney is a local immigration attorney and founder of the Migrant Farmworkers Assistance Fund. Rev. Stephens' church welcomes all. He is appalled at how immigrants are treated by so many in the US. It is particularly galling that the major media report without comment claims that immigrants are responsible for substantially more crime and are otherwise a drain on the economy for US citizens, when those claims are contradicted by available research: Studies comparing sanctuary cities to less-immigrant friendly locations find either no difference or less crime and higher median incomes in sanctuary cities. Copyright 2025 Andrew Sillen, Michael Stephens, Suzanne Gladney, and Spencer Graves, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 international license. _______ 1. Andrew Sillen (2024) Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White (Johns Hopkins U. Pr., p. 111-114); 2. Sillen (p. 3).